I Always Obey My Nurse

by Thomas Merton

I always obey my nurse
I always care
For wound and fracture
Because I am always broken
I obey my nurse

And God did not make death
He did not make pain
But the little blind fire
That leaps from one wound into another
Knitting the broken bones
And fixing sins so they can be forgotten

I will obey my nurse who keeps this fire
Deep in her wounded breast
For God did not make death

He did not make pain
Or the arrogant wound
That smells under the official bandage

Because I am always broken I obey my nurse
Who in her grey eyes and her moral breast
Holds an immortal love the wise have fractured
Because we have both been broken we can tell
That God did not make death

I will obey the little spark
That flies from fracture to fracture
And the explosion
Where God did not make death
But only vision.

I will obey my nurse's broken heart
Where all fires come from
And the abyss of light
Made of pardoned sin
For God did not make death

I always obey the spark that smacks the lightning
In the giant night
I obey without question
The outlaw reasons
The cries in the abyss
From this world's body that the wise have fractured

For God did not make death
He did not make prisons
Or stalking canonical ravens
The dirt in the incision

I will obey my nurse
I will always take care
Of my fractured religion

And God did not make death.