Ezekiel 2:9–10
Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning, and woe.
Ezekiel 3:1–3
And He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.
Ezekiel 3:14
So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away; and I went embittered in the rage of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong on me.
No gentle volume offered to the hand,
No silken page to turn with measured care:
A scroll unfurled in flame, on either hand
Lamentation, mourning, woe laid bare.
“Son of man,” the voice resounds through bone,
“Eat what lies before thee—fill thy frame.
Devour the writing, leave no line unshown,
Make judgment’s ink the substance of thy name.”
I parted lips as one who meets his fate,
And took the roll entire upon my tongue;
The taste of honey flooded palate, throat,
While gall of sorrow pressed where breath is sung.
Yet sweeter grew the sweetness as I chewed—
Not honey stolen from the summer comb,
But honey born of perfect will subdued,
Of love that wounds to heal the heart’s deep home.
O mystery of eating strange and deep!
The Word descends not to the outward ear,
But deeper, past the tongue’s dividing keep,
Into the belly’s cavern dark and sheer.
There in the crypt of self the scroll dissolves,
Its bitter script transmuted into light;
What once was woe the inner furnace solves,
And turns to sweetness burning through the night.
No longer separate, the man and message blend—
The prophet is the lament he must bear;
His sinews bear the weight that God would send,
His breath the very sigh of heaven’s prayer.
Thus swallowed whole, the soul is lifted high,
Transfigured in the act of full consent;
The hidden sweetness blooms where tears once lie,
And union with the Will is sacrament.
Let others skim the surface of the page,
Debate its edges, quote its phrases bright:
The true disciple enters that fierce stage
Where eating is the only way to sight.
For God requires not admirers mild,
Nor connoisseurs of sacred text and lore—
He seeks the one whose inmost self is styled
By every syllable the scroll once bore.
So eat, O pilgrim, let the honey stay,
Though sorrow churn the stomach in its course;
The Word, once taken in, will never stray—
It is the life, the way, the very source.
