Place Me Like a Seal Over Your Heart, by Devon Balwit

Place Me Like a Seal Over Your Heart, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada). 2015.

Place Me Like a Seal Over Your Heart (A Golden Shovel)

​"Set me as a seal upon your heart, for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame." Song of Solomon 8:6

Workmanlike, I lift the hod, set
it on my back. Show me
what needs doing, and I will, as stolid as
a draft horse leaning into the yoke. Many mock me as a
simpleton, but I bear willingly the original seal
laid on Adam, to work by the sweat of his brow. Upon
me falls the same injunction. Let it be done to me, according to your
word, I say. I find pleasure in sweat, in the pounding of my heart;
Decades have made maul and trowel as comfortable for
me as my own hands. The sawblade sings my love
for the thing done well. What is
finer than the crossbar true beneath the level, the strong
fence, the well-joined table? As
a father, I pray my children outlive me, but neither shall death
rob me of what I’ve made. I feel jealousy
before the cathedral, Stonehenge, the menhir. Behind them is
my twin, separated by time. It’s cruel
that one day my hands will tremble, that I’ll only watch as
others labor. The
trick will be the reachable task, even the preparation of my grave;
As my world contracts, I’ll survey the spot, map its
length, dig it deep, shore it up. Only in flashes
can I imagine what comes after, glimpses that are
swallowed as quickly as they come. Only in flashes
can I set aside fear and trust that the god of Eden will know of
my nature and either smelt me anew in his unquenchable fire,
or craft me otherwise, making me more like a
candlewick, most
comfortable when consumed, even by vehement
flame.

Devon Balwit

This poem is from the just released Risk Being/Complicated, a full-colour illustrated collection of poems by Devon Balwit inspired by the art of Ekphrastic Review editor Lorette C. Luzajic. Click book cover image below to view or purchase on Amazon.

The poem was first published at Ink and Letters.

Devon Balwit teaches in Portland, OR. She has six chapbooks and two collections out or forthcoming, among them: The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry); We are Procession, Seismograph (Nixes Mate Books), and Motes at Play in the Halls of Light (Kelsay Books). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Fifth Wednesday, the Aeolian Harp Folio, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River, The Free State Review, Rattle, The Inflectionist Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and more.

Click on book image to view or buy at Amazon.