is it too late, o lord?
is it too late to re-enter the womb--to emerge a boy again.
so clean and bright, my features still round and no angles and no stubble and no dissipation?
is it too late o lord to have again a child's voice--so high, so pure, so beautiful, such as to make old men cry with wracking cries?
is it too late o lord to feel the earnestness of youth? to be innocent in spite of petty foolishness and foibles. is it too late o lord, my god, to be thy child? thy son?
o god i would be that child. with hair of gold and cut in the norman fashion of purity. with eyes of delightful and not-too-piercing blue.
could i not cry 'vivat regina!' could i not be the hymn that makes the earth spin and the angels lament their immortality?
o god, is it too late now to shed all that i am?
is my repentence possible?
o god. to be a man is but to be a boy who missed the aventures he should have had. to have foregone the purity he could have kept, to have joined the fray of life, when i could, oh god, have stayed pure, ripped out my manliness and remained with you. pure, in the heavens, to be taken up with you. and my face framed in white and my young body swathed in red. red so soft and stiff and unyieldinng.
o god. who wretched must be for all we are in your image. do you, too, seek that childhood?
come then, play in my wretched heart and make light of me and throw stones at me if you wish. for i will only rejoice at seeing that picture, that picture where hope lives, and meals expected, and comfort the norm.
and your voice, o god, would pierce the heavens, raising up to high upon high. and if you did that, i would finally end. finally shed this frame. and take my chances with the angels, and with the starry night.