How To Write a Hymn (1)

Give forth enough breath to let images
cut shapelessly into the lungs’ flatness.
Wrap each symbol tense, layering upon
steep cliffs the cascade of fall·catch·fall·rise.
The God will buoy you. Attend to this:
a flutter of notes light as incense,
brittle as dried laurel crushed between palms.
Open up this everything in ink’s meandering traces.
Work them gently like clay upon a wheel,
but do not look down, back, away —
keep the gaze upon the God’s steady river.