Revelation (revised, again)

Listen: I am going to tell you something.
You will not repeat it. You will be lucky
even to survive. When I speak, your heart
will catch like a match. When I speak your pulse
turn to a tide. When I speak your ears
will hold all human words, like a wood full of birds,
they cry "lonely, lonely." When you hear, your back
will arch like the sky. You will call like the thunder:
"bones, come together. Bones, take your order."
Be still. Your words
are code for breath. They cannot make
the stones bleed water, or set the sun
ablaze past colour. I am the word
that made the clay curl up in fingers.
How can you answer? Be still
and I will make an oak of you. Be still
and I will put a bolt through you
and turn your lungs to hands of lightning.
Do not be frightened. You have wanted
wings. An end to death. (Remember,
I have walked as pulse and skin. I know
what you long for.) Be still
and I will turn your ribs to wings,
your sternum to the keel
of a bird, a deep bone
to anchor silence. Come, open
your mouth. Let me put my book
on your tongue: a stone, a coin, a wafer.
Become salt. Savour.