El [Part I]

I. El Shaddai — God Almighty

Of him by which the galaxies form
in the vapour of his breath—
a word spoken and the world
fleshed out of a void into a wonder of light.

Mountains erupt and
oceans skip like lambs.
Seated, on a throne above all earthly,
he governs in royal prestige.

His government is the heavens
and he commands all without under one jurisdiction.
O sovereign KING of Kings!
Even the seraphim bow in dread.

Everything here is proof
of a divinity that transcends the breadth of time
and translates the geometry of space.

He who wears glory like an apparel—
glistening jewels and bespectacled raiments.

O Most High, the sky is His footstool.

II. El Olam — The Eternal God

He sits at the beginning
and the end of time yet,
he has no beginning nor end.

Timeless like a clock that doesn’t tell
time. Rhetoric—the mystery hidden
in mysteries, he is the secret that
cannot be divulged.

He who hides himself with himself in himself like a silhouette
wrapped in a garment of light.
Who comprehends your mindscape?
Who knows you more than yourself?

You, a question to an answer that questions an answer.
Uncrackable Rubik’s cube of mystery.

III. El Roi — He Who Sees

He who sees even in secret.
He is the Watchman in the Lighthouse Hill,
keeping watch. He who needs no binoculars
to see beyond and farther into the future.

What is the focal length of his eyesight?
He who sees the universe all at once.
No hidden thing in the eyes of the all-Seer.
He who sees before the beginning and beyond the end.

IV. El Hannora — The Awesome God

At your feet, the Stars worship.
A hundred billion Angels sing in
psalms and hymns, instruments of
harps, flutes and lyres, a bass so sharp
it could cut the air in half, in their throats—
throbbing panegyric of worship.

The Seas roar his greatness.
Everything exists to celebrate his royal highness.
A hundred billion creatures captured under his breath.

V. El Yeshuatenu — God of our salvation

Wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities,
stripped for our healing
and chastised for our peace—
the light of the world hung on a tree.

His sacrifice, a gift of grace.
Our Goshen — where the darkness is washed into light,
and honey saturates the rivers.