Contrasting Figures of Glory

Glory, as God, is revealed,

Yet remains shrouded:

Mysterious even for all its familiarity.

What does the word mean, anyway?

And can it once, twice, figured out, glimpséd be?

Is it like what happens when you first arrive at a beach?

You step onto the scalding, bleached sand; feet bare,

("Is this holy ground?" your feet squeak)

You cannot stare--the orb of heaven's beams break

Upon the waters and dash into your eyes from the dunes

Dazzling them with impenetrable light.

Yet there is sight,

(and zounds! sounds, too)

Ocean waves, emerald and azure dejure, speak to you,

They whisper in harmonic tones, tomes;

Whishing their wishes for someone to hear,

Some one, like you, with ears and eyes and pores open.

The sky lengthens itself across the horizon,

Kissing the sea along its entire body,

As its clouds, pluming with loving pride, ascend,

Stretching their precipitous bulk toward the firmament.

Or maybe glory is like a thunderstorm in the wild,

Where no man wishes to witness its violence unsheltered.

Spewing liquid bullets at the earth from high turrets,

(A million gatling guns going off--RA-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!)

Zeus-flung fire bolts from the bow of heaven fall,

(Drums of thunder shock the air with their sound--BA-BOOM-BOOM-boom-boom)

Blasting the grasses and trees into oblivion,

Bringing forth fires to blow their foul breath,

Popping and hissing across the plains in the rain,

Leaving behind their black carnage, and scattered bones,

To be bleached in the sun's bright coroner light,

Testifying to the storm's death-dealing power,

From which, in time, new life shall, verdant, 

Spring (copses from corpses).

Twice figured glory, are you thus espied, touched, and sounded?

And in a story, sweetly fabled, moralized and founded?