Spinoza, God-intoxicated lens grinder,
knows the color of God’s eyes, though
he chooses not to say, to cloud the issue
over like a cataract, to force us to contemplate
a face-to-face encounter with the darkness.
When we had our icons it was easier—
we could avert our eyes from his with confidence.
There was a heaven and a hell to burn in,
a place to pasture sheep. Refuge.
Like the patriarchs Spinoza has come
face to face with God. In good conscience
he cannot reveal their color. The brave man
chooses to be cast out and shunned
rather than sow discord with his doubt.
God, he thinks, has no eye, unless
it is the eye of the storm—the one we swirl
and swill in the taverns of our contemplation,
waiting for this Dutch Jacob to return
from his encounter, declare the contest
a draw and tell us that to be released
to life again, he has had to sign
a nondisclosure agreement, that all
he is permitted to say is that God,
who has one evil eye and one good one,
is the moving force of the universe.Michael Lieberman, M.D., Ph.D
Michael Lieberman, M.D., Ph.D., is the former chair of pathology at The Methodist Hospital and former director of The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. He has published five collections of poems. “The Color of God’s Eyes” will appear in his new collection, Bonfire of the Verities. He is also the author of a novel, Never Surrender—Never Retreat, A Novel of Medical Politics in Texas, and a forthcoming novella.