For the love of God, man!

 For the love of God, man! 

In William Carlos Williams’ “A Love Song,” purity becomes stain, light becomes dark, what should float in the air falls in a steady drip.

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colors
Of the whole world.

There’s more to the poem than that. But there is that, smack dab in the center of it. There is love that stains, that turns white yellow, that consumes, that smears. There is love that is not transparent but thick, that coats like honey - or motor oil - that smothers. It is not only that white has been turned yellow but sky-blue purple; green is becoming gray, and brown smells like burnt cork.

   It doesn’t matter on or near which buckle of the Bible belt 

   you live, my friend Gaspar Stephens says, the God you wor-

   ship and adore and follow looks and acts something like
   Cliven Bundy. He loves his children, if some better than
   others; but for their own good he takes no shit from any
   of them or anyone else.

It’s the love of a woman - or a man - that doesn’t wish to caress but to scratch. It is the love of a parent that doesn’t wish to hold but to beat some sense into. 
     It is the love of a God that desires justice as He defines it, a God that desires discipline as He orders it and One that will beat us to within an inch of our lives to get it; it is the love of a God that knows why the blind are blind, the deaf are deaf, and the dumb cannot speak. One that has no desire heal the sick - they are sick for a reason. Or to lift up the poor - let them stay down. A God that will not set free the oppressed for they need to be under someone's thumb.

     Who have ears let them hear.

06.27.17