Tetragrammaton…i Am Rushing These Poems Like A Bulb About To Blow Poem by John Tansey

Tetragrammaton… V.1
A light, so bright, that no man who sees its face may live


Thinking of an old, unutterable word for creation
It is, like the sound, trapped, in every sea-shell,
found along the shores.

A word I knew, once, as a child in kindergarten, because,
Wearing my father’s shirt, I wrote it in finger-paint.

Or, once ordered to stand and write a thousand times
Or more, with white chalk on the blackboard, after school:

The Judaic word, unspoken, for pain of stoning,
The all empowering, creative name of God,
Never to be taken in vain…


John Tansey 11.10.8


Copyright ©2008 John Thomas Tansey