An old Poem

The First Commandment
“If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?
Jer. 12: 5

The LORD would make
the Hebrew prophets eat
His words
and they would be sweet as honey,
or bitter, or a furnace raging
in their bones until they spoke woe
and grace.

I am unworthy to face
such oracles, captivated
by all-too-mortal voices
that shake my soul.

Would that I not break
the first commandment.

But there are times I fear
I am turned aside after foreign gods,
hungry for their scrolls
to work their fierce magic
and ravish my cells
in lesser incarnation.

Patrick Todoroff
Sept., 2010