Religion by Maxwell Bodenheim — Read

Alvin Tor sat in his floating row-boat and read the Bible. Green waves / died upon each other, like a cohesive fantasy. Each small wave rose as / high as the other and ended in a swan's neck of white interrogation. / Sunlight blinded the water as style dazes the contents of a poem and / the blue sky lifted itself to symmetrical stupor. The air fell against / one like a soothing religion. The bristling melancholia of pine trees / lined the wide river. But Alvin Tor sat in his floating row-boat, / reading the Bible. He read the Songs of Solomon, and a sensual / pantomime made a taut stage of his face. When not reading the Songs / of Solomon he was as staidly poised as a monk's folded arms. He had / borrowed the colours of his life from that spectrum of desire which he / called God. Different shades of green leaves were, to him, the playful / jealousies of a presence; the tossed colours of birds became the / ineffably light gestures of a lost poet.

His Swedish peasant's face had singed its dimples in a bit of / sophistication but his eyes were undeceived. His heart was a secluded / soliloquy transforming the shouts of the world into tinkling surmises. / His broad nose and long lips were always at ease and his ruddy skin / held the texture of fresh bunting. His eyes knew the unkindled / reticence of a rustic boy.