Grace

What I've always admired about John Donne is his ability, his extreme daring (and accompanying closeness) to just yell at God. Critics have pointed to these moments in his poetry (witness Batter my Heart, the sonnet) as proof that he tries to use wit as his last defence against an unknowable God, or to prove that his heart wasn't really in it, that he was an oscillator between Catholic and Protestant churches, but to me it was a sign of real faith. King David did it a lot in the psalms - rant, rave, yell at God, because life sometimes does make you angry.

This is my own attempt at describing the phenomenon.

Grace

My anger is a ball.

I clench it in my fist like a treasure.

It grows sides, imprints my palm lines.

I roll it, it becomes a perfect ball again.

It is very small. I press it smaller.

Some days it is so tiny I lose it

But it’s really in the center of my palm.

I let it drop, it bounces up again,

Magnetic, or rubbery, with veins.

When I sleep, it throbs and I relax.

In the morning it is swollen slightly.

Sometimes I get out three cups,

One for me, one for you, one for us,

And I play the magic cup game.

Guess where my anger is now?

I do not know or understand the silver cliffs

Of your authority

But I am certain that if I hurled

My anger would rise past its highest peak

So I hurl,

The air rushes with the sound

And nothing;

I’m still waiting for rebound.