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GOD MUST 
SURELY BE 
MERCIFUL

(dedicated to Anna Świrszczyńska, 1909-1984)

as a newborn baby

i cheered and laughed and hurt and rejoiced

and cried and cringed and lashed out in fiery rage

as to become a human being -

now i reckon

that i myself had no choice in this becoming,

and that life was forced as if a burden;
  it is with this experience i must confess to conclude 
 that God is surely terrible.

as a naïve child

i put my finger on the fire

as to become a saint -

but it burnt to nothing but a black crisp,

and from that day on,

everything i have pointed towards

has turned to black rot, deadwood and muck; 
and i saw  

that God is surely terrible.

as a teenage child

i put a knife to my own flesh

as to become an ascetic - 
i know  

but my wounds only leered mockingly,

not with self-contempt nor with fear,
  no, they leered of ecstasy and of exhiliration, 

  and with the existential dread and the confusion alongside it;

and for this we must say: 
  yes, God is surely terrible,
            but he can be bargained with. 

as a young man

i steered my ship into a mist

and i found myself lost in the rugged coasts 

   in the senseless adventure
    as to become an explorer -

but my sails caught instead the gale of longing,

and now i haunt wide the ocean with loneliness,

with anxiety, and with alienation... indeed,

God is surely terrible.
   but God is a lighthouse as well. 

yes, as a grown man

i considered suicide,

and i made myself aware
through ardent and passionate introspection

of this limitless and self-deifying possibility.

and indeed, i could for the first time understand,
           as if inspired by gnostic thoughts,
         that, allowing such a thing,
          God must surely be merciful.