Painted Veils Poem by gershon hepner

A bright blot on a gloomy scene,
I paint upon the textual veils
that cover meanings thought obscene
by those who think that Bible tales
should be as pure as driven snow,
and while on thinnest ice I skate
I show the way fresh waters flow
beneath the surface, and filtrate
the meanings that offend the masses,
distilling them till they are clear
to me as blue ice in crevasses
where I’m a merry mountaineer.

Inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Lift Not the Painted Veil, ” quoted in part in Adam Kirsch’s review of “Being Shelley” by Ann Wroe (“Avenging Angel”) in The New Yorker, August 27,2007:

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread, —behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

8/22/07