By This Shallmenknow
by S.P. Bailey
Shallmenknow is no
Talisman
No hocus pocus
Or abracadabra alakazam
These are trinkets and chatter
Bereft of power
Expressing the form
Denying the substance
And furthermore, you will
Search for them in vain
In the pages of the hymn book
But consider Hymn No. 308
Love One Another
Just four simple lines
The song we sing
When time is short
When the talks run long
And the babies are wailing
The Cheerios all gone
I was a child
Love One Another
Punched a hole
In the sky above my head
And spilled ice cold
Doctrine down my back
By this shallmenknow
The hymn proclaims
In the voice of Jesus
Ye are my disciples
I treasured up that
Shallmenknow in my heart
The one true incantation
I speculated on its origins
And listened for it carefully
In lessons and prayers
Waiting for Him to do
Something else—anything—
By the power of shallmenknow
*
I figured it out eventually
The words to the hymn
Also, I learned it’s hard sometimes
To love one another
That there’s no amulet
To ward off the fear
That often stops us dead
That makes us imagine ourselves
Over and over again
Getting coldcocked
Square in the open heart
That there’s no spell to bypass
The monotony of marching
To duty’s drumbeat
That we can’t just erase
With the blink of an eye or
A twitch of the nose
The stark cold morning
Of dreams and plans set aside
No, the true power of shallmenknow
Is eked out without enchantment
Just a numberless succession of
Disagreeable moments
A million chances to leave
Advantages untaken and
True, cruel words unsaid
To give without expectation
And beyond all comfort
To give, for others’ good,
The ever-grasping self
Such a head fake
That it is completely lost