THE RETURN … · Web viewBut critics will maintain, the recent word “comrade” isn’t even...

PAVEL P March 6, 2004-Sept. 11, 2005 / © Pavel Chichikov

THE RETURNA free translation of Der Umkehrende (4)

by Joseph von Eichendorf (1788–1857)

Season goes to seasons, runsBloody into setting suns,Pleasure ends and darkness wins,A shovel snuffs the flames of sins

Suffering’s a quiet thiefOf summer love and summer leaf,For everything that grows must fallAnd even cities, wall by wall

Who could bear futilityThe senselessness of miseryThe falling in of faith and loveIf You did not keep house above?

Down around our heads You pullThe brittle house of human willSo by the breaking of Your graceWe see the sunlight of Your face

Pavel ChichikovMarch 26, 2004

1


WHEN CHILDREN PRAY

In the old times, in the old days, many nights gone byMonsters came with menaces, and hard-looking eyesFleshless faces, full of envy, grievances and woeNow they fade in sunlight, but still they come and go

Now they move inside the frames of women and of menGrown and busy citizens, but still the same as thenWho in the moonlight, in their sleep, half-waking in a dreamSee the ones who live inside, rise, depart from them

Stand above the others, sleeping in their bedsWhispering their menaces of jealousy, and dreadPerhaps they are old demons, although they are no ghostsSomething in the shadow world that searches for a host

They are the children of the one who twisted round a treeThey live inside the apple now, except when children prayOne who rests in humbleness, that one is a childAnd from the lashing of the world escapes, is not defiled

That one for a moment, sees in clarityWhat children kneeling at their prayer, and the dying see


2


SONG

I was born in darkness – I have seen the days, Autumn in distressWinter’s long delays

Now the tropic growsHyacinths and roses,Blossoms are the snowsLonger day discloses

Lightest are the topsOf the tallest treesFreest till they stopAre the tallest leaves

Sweetest is the loveOn the briefest nightTaken from aboveBy the summer light


3


OLD ONE

The sun is an old gentleman I’ve knownWho smokes cigars in bed and yet he neverSets the sea on fire in the tropic zone

When he rises, puffs and blows a breathClouds surround him, blue shrouds round his shoulders,All fiery within he stretches to the zenith

With groans so deep no human senses hear,Although he is as old as other starsHe rises to his feet, resumes the day, the year

Each day, step by step, he climbs a hillAnd looks out over time which day by dayThe business of duration clogs and fills

He puffs and breathes and watches while the hotEnd of his seegar draws and glows—The sun knows what will be, and what will not

He is the patient one who smolders without rage—It is the bulk of light which makes him prescient,His roundness rolling, also his great age

But even he, the sun, may not look pastThe edge of the horizon where the day will endFor that is hidden, and forbidden to forecast

And when he stumbles heavy toward the chambersOf the dead years chilling under mountainsLightly up the night his daughter clambers

Because he is his memory the sun prepares for slumber,Slides down to the underworld with yawnsOf indigo and purple, blooms of umber

And then upon the softest sea he fallsWhere nothing is refreshed unless it dreams,And dreaming of what is to be, recalls


4


ULTIMA RATIOBy Friederich Georg Juenger (1898–1977)Trans. from the German

Conceit of the titanicFalls to rust,Everything metallicUnforged to dust

Passionately madWith foolish faith,Lost everything they hadBoth steel and lathe

Shapelessly it liesIn uselessness—Patience! It will passTo nothingness

All that time they madeWhat shattered them,Lifted overheadWhat threw them down

[Sie schafften stets ja mit,Was sie vernichtet,Und fallen mit der Last,Die sie errichtet.]


5


THE OLD FOUNTAINA translation from the German of “Der alte Brunnen”by Hans Carossa (1878–1956)

Put out your light and sleep. It is the toneWhich guests of mine grow soon familiar withWhen underneath my roof, and that aloneWhich keeps them wakeful with its purling breath

Old Fountain’s flowing, though it may emergeThat in the midst of dreams a restlessnessWill travel round the house and on the vergeThe gravel stones may grate with heavy steps

And you wake up—yet be not in distress!The starry host still stands above the land,It is a rover servicing his thirstWho from the marble waters with his hands

He’ll soon be off again, the rushing soundContinues, and with pleasure you have learnedThat wanderers beneath the stars aboundAnd you are not alone till they return


6


WINTER NIGHTBy Gottfried Keller (1819–1890)[translated from the German]

Not even wing beats in the world,The white snow shimmered quietly.The sky’s clean tent unflawed by cloud,The waveless lake lay torpidly.

A tree drowned deep spread out its boughsUpraised its branches toward the nightAnd as I watched a being rose,And gazed through ice, that water sprite.

Beneath a membrane, hard and grim,Where evening light and darkness meet,I saw the Nixie, limb by limb,Her pallid beauty at my feet

With baffled groping and despairShe probed the ice, a way to find,But I shall see her nevermoreAnd she a haunting in my mind

Pavel ChichikovApril 1, 2004

7


ON DEPARTINGBy Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)[translated from the German]

Dead to me is every lustDesire fills me with disgust,I am indifferent, I confessTo mine own and your distress—The only thing that still draws breathWithin my lungs is my own death

The curtain falls, the play is doneAnd from the theater one by oneMy yawning public goes perhapsTo eat its dinners, drink its schnapps;They are no fools, these German folksWho laugh and sing and tell their jokes—He had it right, that hero boldWho in his Homer-parchment toldHow meanest Stuttgart Philistines Enjoy their lives—though I lose mine—Far better than this hero’s sonThis shadow prince, dead champion


8


DIE LORELEIBy Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)[translated from the German]

I don’t know why it should happenThat I feel such a sadness start,There’s a tale of an olden visionThat I can’t get out of my heart

Cool is the air, in the westFalls the sun and at peace is the Rhine,The peaks of the hilltops caressedBy the evening sunshine

A stunningly ravishing maiden Is combing her golden hair,Such a wonderful glittering vision With her golden adornments there

She combs with a comb made of goldSings as she combs, singing sheSuch a song of a power untold,Such a wonderful melody

A boatman who sails underneath herLooks away from the rocks passing by,And seized by that terrible powerHe can only look up and die

I believe that the waves were so strongThey swallowed the drowning one,And that’s what she’s done with her songs,What the Lorelei has done


9


NORTH

Duck and drake outstretching wideCambered and communing wings,In echelon they gain and slideWithin the air, self-hurling slings

Arrow-straight above the brookWhere yesterday they dabbled, fedOn speckled minnows that they tookWith flexible and tapered heads

Then the impetus to breedWithin the male and female brainHormone to a balance bleedsAnd takes them to the air again

They see no self-reflecting glassNo smooth and self-presenting streamExcept to feed and then to passInto a far and dreamless dream

O streamlined chests and oars of airO powerful on-homing lusts,O crux in form and rapid prayerAnd recklessness, and wild trust

Who can send you? Who can flingYour space-compelling, finding leap?Who can spread your stiffened wingsAnd furl them up again to sleep?


10


MIGNONBy Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)[translated from the German]

Know you the land where the lemon-trees bloom,And the orange trees glow in the greenest of glooms,Where a zephyr descends from the gentle blue sky,And the myrtle is hushed and a bay tree is high,Do you know where it is? That is where. That is where.I will take you to see it, beloved, my dear.

Know you the house? The roof is on pillars,The hall is agleam, and within is a glimmer,And statues of marble stand by me and say:“Poor lost little child have they led you astray?”Do you know where it is? That is where. That is where.I will take you to see it, my guardian dear.

Know you the mountains, their cloudy high paths?Where the muleteer gropes with the mule through the mists,Where broods of old dragons hole up in their hides,And the waterfall leaps from a sheer mountainside;Do you know where it is? I know it, I say—That’s where the way leads us, my father. Away!


11


OUTSIDE

The wind shall rush, the wind shall moanWhen God ascends the judging throne,And all who fear Him will obeyAnd those who do not, anywayShall stand before the light of lightAnd there shall be no hiding-night

Before the faces of the liarsBarriers, and walls of fires,Oppressors proudly on their feetThe innocents they ravished meet,And those indifferent to painMay not avoid it here again

Some of these shall see the hollowFaces of the fiends they followedMarching with the sling and gunTo kill the mother and the sonThe father and beloved childWith violence and fear defiledIn battle and in bombing raid—How shall debts of death be paid?In that endless golden placeThe winds of God His mercies traceA wind forever, sacred wordThat all who live and feel have heard

Wind of patience, wind of strengthWind of time in all its lengthWind that blows beyond, withinThe world of space and time and sin,Duration’s master, martyr’s friendJoy and wisdom, wisdom’s end,Wind that tears away the heartOf pride and evil, then departs,Wind that sieves the cities down,Dust and powder to the ground,

One who sits upon the chairOf judgment contemplates them thereUntil Eternity shall riseTo fix them with compassion’s eyesAnd with ungrieving sadness sayWhat shall I do my children, pay?

12


And all the crowd is patient, stillSubmissive to His searching will,Hears the speaking of their breath:Is it our life or is it death?

And all will at that moment seeHis glory and His unityUnderstand His tranquil powerWait for Him and none will cower—Then His judgment they will knowFor whom He pays and who lets go,Exile or the palm of joy—He loves and treasures, none destroys

Most will ask Him to forgiveHe shall cherish and they live,Some withdraw – He offers leaveFor them to go, themselves to grieve,Inhabit no coordinateOf space and time, another state;A wind that reaches even thereFor them to hear, or to despair,To savor once again His loveOr be within where nothing moves;Out of time or time withinTo Him and Him alone is known


13


CHRISTIAN EPIGRAMSby Angelus Silesius (Johannes Scheffler, 1624–1677)[translated from the German]

A Christian is God’s Son

I too am the son of God and close beside Him dwell,Spirit, flesh and blood also, and God He knows me well

Time is Eternity

Time is but Eternity, Eternity is timeIf you yourself between the two no difference define

No Why

The rose gives never reason, though petals may transpireIt never loves nor sees itself, nor cares who may admire

Accident and Essence

Man, be with the Essence! The worldly is corruptAccidents will die away, and Essence will stand up

It Depends on You

If the human heart on Earth could yet become a cribThen Christ would come again to us, to sleep beneath the rib

When God most Delights to Be with Us

The Father’s greatest pleasure is to visit with His sonsBut likes to come and see them when no one is at home


14


DAS GLÜCK IST EINE LEICHTE DIRNEBy Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)

Luck is loose, libidinous,And does not like to stay with us;She smoothes the hair back from your browKisses quick, leaves anyhow

Aunt Misfortune, otherwiseWill bless your heart, does not despise;She’s in no hurry and she sitsBeside your bed and knits, and knits


15


WEIL VOM WOHLLAUT DEINER LIEDERBy Friederich Georg Juenger (1898–1977)

[translated from the German]

The kingdom of the dead was shakenBy the valor of your lyre,And your loved one was re-taken,Rose to see the sun’s bright fire.

If you had not doubtful turnedAnd glanced behind to look at her,Life anew your song had earnedThrough music’s warm, restoring power.

To the dead, their houses gray,Every poet must repairTo carry sweet EurydiceFrom darkness to the brilliant air

I know my vineyard hyacinths,Breathing out the scent of musk,Send the roots of innocenceDown into that gloomy dusk


16


HOW TO PRAY

A hawk is knowing of some thingsA snake can feel the sleeves of EarthA spider has a way with stringsAnd spiderlings she brings to birth

Know how and when to drift awayWithout a teacher yet they rideAlong the atmosphere’s alleeAnd none shall stop them as they glide

A turtle slaps herself in jailTo save her body from arrestExcept the apex of her tailAnd tucks her nose inside her chest

And none shall teach her but herselfAnd even foxes learn to huntBy imitating mother’s stealthOf which an instinct is the font

Yet who can teach a child to prayExcept to mimic hymns and psalmsThe intonation and the kneeThe eye upturned, the touching palms

Mysterious the living skillThat must be learned by other tradesAscension of the steepest hillBy rolling down the steepest grade

Swimming through the wildest seaBy drowning in a shallow pondShaking down the apple treeBy walking all the world around


17


DEATH-RITE, PASSION WEEK

This wild howling in the air is death,Ashes of the dead ones near the altar,Wolf, ghoul, or something large with handsSomething that can groan pulls at the doorsLifts the heavy roof and lets it goSomething great with eyes, a mouth that screamsGrapples with the doors, a famished wind

But old prayers a strapping roof of stoneThe chamber an embracing, holding wallPrayers the steady arches, joins and pillarsAnd the Lord comes forth in favor from His tomb;He is a sphere of fire, nothing passesA torch which draws a circle round the ashesDust of which the mourners here are made

The Lord surrounds us, rounds us and He holds us Soul and flesh that will not be dispersedWall of God, and we are safe within Him;Then let the bearing angels come around us,Bearers of eternal flesh and bloodMinisters of God, His bright pallbearersAnd let them now deliver up the dead

We shall offer up this gatheringThe spirits and the ashes of the deadAnd we will say: Come too this night, you angelsBring me swiftly to the Lord of LightNo riving of the predator disperse me;And He who gathers all the worlds togetherShall gather us and give us form forever


18


THE OX AND THE ASS AT THE MANGERBy Friederich von Spee (1591–1635)[translated from the German]

Flying through deserted skiesThe raven-wind of winter Finds the stable where He lies,Jesus in the manger;Croaks and bumbles over HimBeak of ice to prodTender flesh and tiny limbs,Incarnated God

Stop, stop you frost and hailWicked wind that moans,Stop these sharp and shrieking gales,Leave the child alone;Fly across the savage seasBuffet with your wingsAll the oceans till they freeze,Spare my Infant King

I have something to proposeJoseph dearest brother,Mix the petals of the roseWith ox and donkey fodder;Make a mash to feed them bothLay it at their feet,Quickly, quickly make their breathGentle, warm and sweet

Pious ox and donkey mildPurify this room,Cense the body of the childWith rosy warm perfume;Go and blow your breathing:Aha, aha, aha!With your lungs unceasing:Aha, aha, aha!


19


THE SUFFERING COUNTENANCE OF JESUS CHRIST (abridged)By Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676)[translated from the German]

O Head most foully wounded,With blood and pain and scorn!O Head, most cruelly roundedWith mockery and thorn!O Head, else praised and fetedWith beauty and renown,Now shamefully deridedI reverence Thy crown

I know that what Thou suffered,Should be my self-same woe,That I have earned those buffets,Deserve those self-same blows.A wretched soul I stand here,Thy wrath must chasten me;And yet my gentle Savior,Grant me Thy charity

Here I stand beside Thee,And Thou my soul may take;And I will never leave Thee,Till when Thy heart shall break;Till when Thy heart is emptiedAnd nearly done all harm,Then I shall hold Thy bodyEnwrapped within my arms

When time comes for my leaving,Do not depart from me,When time comes for my suffering,Appear that I may see,When fear fills up my visionMy heart by dread enchained,Then free me from my prisonDear Savior by Thy pain.


20


HOLY SATURDAY

It’s a dog-tooth violet, adder’s tongueBent over, no higher than a pebble or a wormBut it can raise a roof, withstand a storm,Breathes the air although it has no lung

Can you hear it hiss? A beetle, kelly green—He jumps and skitters with his stiff short legs,We know not where his mistress keeps her eggs—A leprechaun, a gentleman, and yet he doesn’t preen

Here in this dark hollow in a tree,I saw a spider of enormous breadth one day,A gothic arch she spanned and yet she would not prayNor needed to, but stood there piously

Woodpeckers hammer with their own hard heads,Their beaks are mallets though they drive no wedges,They measure off their timber though it has no edges,Maggots under cover are their daily bread

Hear the hollow knocking? It’s a clever workmanNailing up the lumber for a little casket,When will it be ready? You can ask it.Soon there’ll be a funeral for old Cock Robin

Hold your adder’s tongue, it says, no speechesTiresome the questions of the human stock,Silently the crooked praying mantis preaches,Answer with an antiphon of “knock, knock, knock”

Who is it knocking at the Earth’s cold door?Whose hand upraised that fastens on the latch?It is the Life of life itself must hatchThough all the living creatures come before


21


CHRISTMAS CAROL, ANONYMOUS(Austrian, 19th Century)[translated from the German]

On a meadow fairShelter I put thereTo watch my sheep;Drowsy so I lieDown and shut my eyesBut I can’t sleep.

Eyelids open wide,I hear a voice outside:A lovely song;Psalmody so sweetI never thought to meetMy whole life long.

Cherubs come and sayIn a friendly wayTo follow them;Ox and donkey wait,Up and don’t be lateTo Bethlehem.

See the star above?There’s a Child of loveBeneath, they said;Savior is His nameMercy why He came,A crib His bed.

One who governs allKing of heaven’s hallIn such a place?Why not stay in town?Lodging could be foundTo suit His Grace.

Love alone would goFrom heaven to belowTo save us here;Not on Easy StreetBut where the cattle eatDoes He appear.

22


Dearest Jesus mildHeaven’s angel ChildMiraculous;When death approaches fast,In our final gasp,Then think of us.


23


GHOSTS

The human soul unblessed,A graveyard in the mist—Who knows what may emergeThough phantoms don’t exist?

And as the cherub weeps Beneath the cypress treeWho knows what may come out—Caliban set free

There is a worm that crawlsFrom underneath the oakAngel in the faceDemon in a cloak

There is an angry wraithFlesh and bone of airCan with a chilling breathInoculate with terror

And yet who else emergedSun of morning clad,Dew upon the leavesThat trembled to be glad?


24


MOONLIT NIGHTBy Joseph von Eichendorf (1788–1657)[translated from the German]

I thought the heavens masculineThe sleeping Earth caressed,And she had stirred and dreamt of himAll in her blossoms dressed.

Along the harvest went a breeze And gently bent the grain,It made a shiver in the trees;The stars like silver rain.

Then my soul spread out her spanOf wings and took to airAbove the still and peaceful landsTo find my homeland there.


25


CONSIDERATION OF THE INFINITE ETERNITY TO COMEBy Johannes Rist (1607–1667)[translated from the German]

Eternity, you thunderous word,O spirit-piercing dreadful sword,Beginning without end!You timeless time, Eternity,A sadness wounds, bewilders meSo I can find no way to wend!My trembling heart is so unmannedMy tongue is dry as desert sand.

In this life there is no trialThat will not for a little whileGo on and then go by.Eternity has no fixed markBut rages on though day be dark,No limit to descry.Yes, just so my Christ has said,And no one from this ever fled.

Eternity, I feel your pangAnd ever, ever you are long,You are no laughing matter!So when I think of your great nightAnd frightful pain with no respiteMy heart is gripped by terror.So broad and wide your boundaries,Your dreadful perpetuities.

Eternity, you thunderous word,O spirit-piercing dreadful sword,Beginning without end!You timeless time, Eternity,A sadness wounds, bewilders meSo I can find no way to wend!My Jesus be it Thy consentTo grant me safety in Thy tent.


26


RISER

Mouselet of the darknessSkitter blindly Mole,Eyeless Orpheus

Now you run aheadBury your blind snoutInside a flower bed

What draws you up from Hades,Exposing hapless fleshTo hard blue space?

Was it rat-snakes, serpentsIn those dark passagesThat tongued your scent?

Now green leaves are sewnThrough eyelet budsSwaying, not one of them alone

Soft your velvet furDark moleskin capeAround your cylinder

Now you face away from usAnd hardly breathe,Head forward in the foliage

A big hawk driftsIn heavy spirals,Tilts her wings and shifts

Little one you are exposedLike those old prophets, deadWho on a day of reckoning arose


27


RUIN

Buzzards squatting on a limbHigh above the creek,Shabby feathers all in trim,Carrion to seek

Bluebells on a pattern spreadSky on celandine,Invisible a yearling deadFor scavengers to clean

Scenting in a wind to bringGossip of a prizeThey loosen up their folded wings,Mercury their eyes

Now they vault and elongateRiding on a breezeFollowing a scenting routeAmong the standing trees

Yesterday I saw a doeWatching from a hill,Now her side is eaten through,She becomes a kill

Where’s the life that made her leap,Signal cotton white,Essence lying forest deepRising to the light.

Where’s the life that lives in meWhen I am dispersed?Body, soul united beAnd ruin not be cursed


28


ALIEN

Fox, a visitationInto the woods, reynard across the roadStopped for a momentMost feral, straight leggedAnd deep rough red,Lank-tall and thin, long muzzledRed as drying blood

Green of the young leavesCovers it with capesThat flow and flutter—It jogs toward the green riverTrots on sprung foursWith a red brush backwardsStiff as bottles, white-tipped

Somewhere is a denAnd kitsFed with cold frogs from black pondsStinking reservoirsTill rains can come again,And the fox-musk spreadsOn the black flood plain

Another kingdomA different countryNo passport can be validatedNo visa stampedNo entry grantedNo ambassador receivedNo document accepted

Under a root an earth, a denA red fox stink withinRough snug walls to burrow in,Hard rejecting eyesFor you who look—You will not see her oftenHuman spies

For this is war—The fallen have no rightsAuthority nor trustSince for eternity we lust,

29


We are the alien outthrustAnd in the forest wallThere is no door


30


ON THE DEATH OF MY CHILD (8)By Joseph von Eichendorf (1788–1857)[translated from the German]

The distant church bells chiming,Through night the hours wade,A lamp is burning low,Your little bed is made

And still the wind is keeningRound and round the walls,Lonely, we within themListen to it call

As if you’d just been wanderingAnd then a doorway found,Softly tapped and enteredAnd wearily sat down

We wretched, foolish peopleWe the baffled roam,Horrified in darknessWhile you have long been home


31


EVENING HYMNBy Matthias Claudius (1740–1805)[translated from the German]

The lofting moon is low,Golden stars aglowShine so bright and clear;The wood is black and still,From meadows’ miracleWhite rising mists appear.

In shadows’ peaceful shade—The mantle dusk has made—Earth is softly draped;As in a safe bedchamberAway from grief and dangerWith eyes closed we escape.

The young moon in ascentMay seem to be a crescentAnd yet she’s round and sleek;And so the wonderfulWe think most laughableBecause our human sight is weak.

Arrogant poor foolsWho think their thoughts are jewelsHave everything to learn;Crafty, we can spinIllusion out of wind,And honest true fulfillment spurn.

Grant us, God, salvation,Save us from delusionLet us not be vain;Save us from our pride,Falsehood be denied,Let us Your happy lambs remain.

When time of death’s at handMay all before You standUntroubled and at peace;And when you call us fromThis life to Kingdom come,Dear Lord, may all our sorrows cease.

32


Now lay us down, my brothersIn God’s name and no other,The evening wind is chill;Lord, reckoning relent,Bless slumber with content,And also every neighbor who is ill.


33


FLOW

The Garden has missed us – where have they gone?Say the four rivers – Pishon and Gihon,Tigris, Euphrates that rise in the westWhere all of the sunset lands are distressed

Hyacinth droops, the petals are curledOn stems that have grown from the underworld,Willows throw down their elongated leaves,Mourners who tear at their tunics and sleeves

Evening shadows are muddied and dullThe colors of blossoms and flowers annul,Silence and emptiness, nothing has voice,Moves from its place, is aware to rejoice

Master and Mistress are banished and fledTime is locked up in this place of the dead,And yet as the Maker is risen from clayThey whom He made will return here some day

The garden will move with the beasts of the wingWind in the leaves will provoke them to sing,The rivers will flow through the portals of Hades,Pishon and Gihon, the Tigris, Euphrates

Pavel ChichikovMay 1, 2004

34


GIFTS

After death, and after death drawn close,When graves have swiveled down like doors with jambs,A man comes near with mushrooms in his hands,The fruiting bodies ivory that glows

Emeralds and ruby in a border—In cabochon a strawberry in green,Not jewel enough for digging dwarves or dragonsNor dear enough to cause a violent murder

And says: these may be eaten, these may not,Some are good, and some may cause a death,Look at these my child, I give you bothDeath may last for long, but life may rot

Everything you fancy you may chooseAnd nothing that I show I may refuse


35


EMERALD IN A COFFIN

I see the diamonds of a spring rainLeap from a spring pond—Collapse, dissolve in vapor

I see a blackbird shrug its wingsAnd buzzing boast its epaulettes—The syrinx of a wren gainsays

A pond dries up and toadlets hop away—Now the dragon nymphs withinMust rise or die

Harmonious repose new builtOn death and contradiction—An emerald is buried in a coffin

Green stone becomes a rough-skinned oak With infant leavesCut fine with perfect fringes


36


THE CURE

I light a candle to the Lord JesusAnd that’s all I can do,For the case is hopeless

This world of agony is speechless dumb,For all the light of every dayOur daylight has no sun

So we make one – code and wax and wick,A bright descending node in darknessFor the never-curing of the sick

Black wick, white wax burn, melt down,A dwindling upright prayingBefore a Child of crowns

The Child all innocent outside and in,Not flame, not wax, nor meltingNot even fault or sin

No cure, no sickness nor appearance, nor even health,No ending, no beginningNo youth or age or death

Infancy perhaps, not His but mineAnd that which I have asked for is a questionAnd a sign

Candle, wax and taper to ignite a name—Immaculate and living one,Heal the insane


37


MOUNTAIN LAUREL

Why take ancient pleasure so to seeIvy growing spiral on a rough oak tree?Deepest green, of dull deep jade the ivy spinsAround the roughest leather of the old cork skin.

Why take ancient pleasure in some singularity?What beggars useful purpose, yet comforts pleasingly?Mountain laurel blossoms petty stars of silverOne afternoon in May – who sees it will remember.


38


THE SOWERBy Andreas Gryphius (1616–1664)[translated from the German]

Your precious seed bears little fruit in me,I nothing hear when You to hear command;A hell bird searching wants me to be damned,To do the Lord’s word in me injury.

When my spirit flowers, multipliesIts blossoms then a burning I oft cursed,And pricking thorns, (which I have feared the most),With stabbings cruel wound wisdom with their lies.

Lord, scare these scavengers who steal from me,Let me even tempted trust in Thee,And pull away those thorns most graciouslyThat still surround my heart’s captivity.Let me be refreshed and blossomed be,And bear my weary cross so patiently,That withered thorns give way, and love go free.


39


PIED PIPER

Now we stop, our growth is over,Now the long slow pull of summer,Vines stretch up and trees extendUntil exhaustion, summer’s end

People too are tired out,The era’s end of the devout,Many marvels have gone byExcept the pipe and piper pied

Hamelin’s children follow him,Marching out from Hamelin—Have you heard this fairy tale?Warning told to no avail

He’s a piper with no face,Memories his tunes erase,Boy and girl and rat and mouseLeave the city, up and raus!

Through the outskirts to the wood—Have you heard and understood?Hear the music dying out,Era’s end of the devout

Many children led awayNothing’s left except today,All the echoes pass and fade—Tomorrow’s gone with a parade

Somewhere in the forest lostHide the angels of the Cross,If you find them stop and seeHow bright the shadows of the trees

Pavel ChichikovJune 4, 2004

40


THE TWIN

Hold the mirror – there’s your face,Portraiture that still can moveIts flattened self from place to place –What can two dimensions prove?

Side to side, up and down,Can two dimensions have a name?Diagonals, but nothing roundExcept illusion of the same

Level sight, your flat familiar,Alien and yet your own,Pinched, distorted, looming near,Never-to-be living clone

Face that must be given back,Dwindle to a vanished spot,Mimicry of every clock,Seeing eyes that will be not

Suppose it could be reached by meAnd I could grasp it by the neck,Pull it forward to the threeDimensions from a silhouette?

Would I then behold my twin,My left-to-right reflected one?What basis for comparison?What mirror am I mirrored in?


41


VON KUEHNEN WUNDERBILDERN…By Joseph von Eichendorf (1788–1857)[translated from the German]

See marble masterpiecesShrunk to stony heaps,A wilderness increasesA blooming garden leaps

There lies a fallen kingdomAs far as one can see,All hail to that dominion—They call it Italy!

When the winds of AprilCleanse the greening plain,A barely heard renewalIn valleys once again

But does a shadow quiverWithin a pagan tomb?It causes one to shiverAnd feel an inner gloom

Stirring in the branchesVoices whispering,With a wave advancesA dream desiring

Within a scented bowerGentle spring’s alight,An ancient magic powerA surreptitious rite

Venus hears the summons,A feathered merry choir,Startled she awakensIn wonder and desire

Seeks the elder placesThat overlook the sea,The temples of her gracesShe searches joyously

42


Alas, there’s nothing in themExcept the vagrant airThat passes through the columns,Through grasses on the stairs

Diana that wild huntressNeptune in his hallAre indolent with sadnessWhere lonely echoes call

Sirens only seldom,Melancholy throng,Mourn departed passionWildly in a song

You stand there disenchanted,Pale and all alone,Your temple is dismantled,Your lovely limbs are stone

Over sea and landShines so meek and mildAbove a rainbow band,A woman with a child

An infant of redemptionThe wonder woman holds,And heavenly compassionSuffuses through the world

In radiance-filled space,Awakened by a gleam,Like droplets from his faceMan sheds an evil dream

And as a lark ascends,From magic’s foul pitThe striving souls of menWing heavenward from it


43


DOLL IN THE COFFIN…

Doll in the coffin,The hands of it folded,Cheeks of it cottonFlaccid skin molded

Eyes of old crystal,Blood of it none,Heart of it charnel,Aging outrun

Now in the casketManikin still,Nothing can harm whatNothing can kill

Who has been lost?Why should we weep?Relic of chaos,Child of the deep

Has she been lost?Nothing to fear—She hasn’t gone farShe doesn’t stay near

It isn’t she isOr was or will be,And what she becomesIs not up to me

Has she been young?Who then can fade her,End what’s begun?Ask Him who made her


44


BULLDOZER

They’ve hauled a poplar from the creekAnd made a muddy savage streak—Tire scrape and shovel bladeTear out the low-roofed summer shade

Locust, poplar, river birchA roof of leaves, a woven church—Across the water in the springVirginia bluebells, thrushes sing

An introit, a vestibuleA wren and sparrow choir school,A master wind to wave and teachWith slender wands of sapling beech

And as a quarter acre fallsThe world itself throws down its walls—Its charities, its pietiesA grove of slender sapling trees


45


THE MULTITUDE

It was said but once,Once upon a time,Stars were angel lanterns,Multitude sublime

And if the angels glowedWith more refulgent light,Those angels must be soAs to exceed our sight

Light so much intenseIt blinds the visible,Except by luminanceOf which no one can tell

Brighter than the starsThey hold up to the dark,Creatures of the warsOf good and evil work

These can never dieThough by creation be,Secluded from the eyeOf those who cannot see

The world is nearly blindExcept that it can moveThe vision of the mindToward sacrificial love

And so the world is lost,Blunders toward a goal—Homeless the immenseMultitude of souls


46


GARDEN MAN POEM

Is that guy a gladiolus or a man?That seems to be his shadow Leaving him with arms akimboToo fidgety to stand

Some energetic doppelgangerMaking footprints on my lawnAcross the dews of dawnHas left his purple jacket on a hanger

Flowers too lose patience,Want to go somewhere that suitsThem better, put down roots,Meet some flowers of a better class

Snobs, they set themselves in motion,Want to meet a lily or an orchidEven though it might be awkwardWithout an introduction


47


DELAYER

The devil sits down at Cova da Iria, reading his breviary,(His is the same as yours, but he reads the prayers with envy),As rain comes spattering down, the oak tree shivers,Only the hope of the sodden faithless withers

“Noon, and the Lady has not arrived,” observes the priest,Whose face is clever, paper skin not creased—The minute hand creeps forward by a shadowAs he speaks to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco

“See, the lady whom you speak of does not arrive—Mid-day, your prophecy is false, your hope contrived,Go home dear children, there will be no sign.”He set the watch ahead of noon, he is malign

But when the sign appears the mimic priest has goneNot seen again, this smooth deceptive one,But he will come again to urge despairWhen heaven even then has answered desperate prayer


48


THE FERTILE ONE

A heron the color of summer duskThat flew in dusk, Tucked into its wingsAbove the river

Cheerful and calmQuiet and pleasedThe virgin river The fertile one

Pavel ChichikovJuly 4, 2004

49


STANZA 97By Lev Loseff[translated from the Russian]

The dispositions of planetsThe gloom of the coffee groundsTell us the angels have had itAnd God is not to be found

And all of the other lettersThe omens, the signs and the runesDon’t clarify anything betterBut sink with the rest into gloom

All of the thoughts in my skullHop around without a connectionThe poems of those I know wellAre formless and often misshapen

When I’m off to my business in townOr only about for a stroll“I” is the vowel that soundsMy ear has got used to its toll

Exhausted with work like a truckGrinning sickfaced like a bitch[*skulyashchii, kak bol’naya suka*]Grammarless language is stuckAnd the words are hub-deep in a ditch

The jerk who from far way bellowsIs making a speech from the voidThe gossip who catches your elbowIs whispering crap unalloyed

Which gurgles and then disappearsIn a howl that nothing has said,But still in that chaos I hearThe rustle of wings overhead


50


THE OMENBy Bulat Okudzhava[translated from the Russian]

*to A. Zhigulin*

When you see a raven soarIt means we’re on our way to war

So there shouldn’t be a warThe soaring raven must be killed,So the raven must be killedGuns with bullets must be filled

When we start to load a gunWe feel like shooting, every oneAnd when the guns begin to barkBullet flying find their mark

A bullet doesn’t pity menIt wants to hit, and that’s the end,One for us, and one for them,Death for all the bullets send

That’s the end of every roundAll are dead are on the ground,But the raven in the skyNo one’s left to make it die


51


THE MOUNTAINfor J. B.

He hasn’t gone away, I swearThe one who spun the spinning sphere,And He who set the mouth to prayerCan lid the eye from flashing fear

For we have seen Him close as this:Hand to skin, the lip to kiss,And seen Him greater than the dayBy dark immensity in play

And also weak who can resistCompressions of the physicist,Or stubborn and recalcitrantSelf-blinding by the hierophant

There is no here or there with HimSince every minute is His limb,He walks by seconds and by hours,Carnivores of death devours

Surrender not, abandonmentIllusion is of blind and bentWho carry corpses on their heads,Themselves the weight, who are not dead


52


PLAIN SIGHTFor Mark Shea

A weedy young doe looks out from behindThe second green growth in a ragged field,Her ears like mule’s or a large tan rabbit’s

First her ears, then nought but greenHer large black eyes, then nodding muzzleThe curve of her neck, but never the whole

She’s hidden like God, concealed in plain sightFunny and yet completely wildTimid and yet untameable


53


SO CLEVER

A goldfinch eats sunflower seeds,Yellow as yolk, black epaulettes,Perches and plucks the seeds away

So light the feathers and the bonesSo black the eye that sees the sunIt will not weigh or move at all

The lion’s head, so small and clever,Or bend the stalk a sparrow would,As light as seconds in forever


54


THREE LITTLE RED BIRDS…

Three little red birdsOne By one,Father, Holy Spirit, Son

In and out of fallen trees,Wren-smallLike theChickadees

Except they’re smooth and russetRed,Silent, flutteringInstead

Discreet they are at restAnd flight,Like heaven hiddenIn plain sight


55


TOMATOESFor Lisa B.

Tomatoes like the setting sunOblate spheroids diving downRain inside, and even noonRoomy berries, red and round

Genuflect to meet the earthBowing by internal weightThunderstorms increase your girthCloudy weather ripens late

Everything inside a seed,A yellow pip, contains you all,Only frame your stem and weed,Wait for August when you’re tall

Then you drop – instead of nightInner daylight and delight


56


WHO IS IT?

Firefly,Who is itHolds you upTo see the garden by?


57


SMALL VISION

MuskratLong time since I’ve seen youRat tailed blond

Hammocked,Head and back don’t breakThe sagging film of water

Somehow by distortion,Tilting forward on a water skinSlide toward us

Why abroad, full sun-lit,Reed and crayfish eaterFrog’s assassin?

In soft red clay You live above high water,Wary swimmer

A tunnel built with clawsAnd snoutAnd rudder

And in the darkness do you seeMoon-waveringWhite mirrors?

Beware the foxWho lives not far away—We’ve seen her in the dusk

At duskLike red flame in the airShe runs


58


THE MOLE

Black-crowned night heronSits on a half-drowned treeBent like the branch she sits on—Instinctual or free?

I know if something swimsIn the turbid water that flowsBrown, it has no limbsBut the deep dark bottom knows

Two things are blind that twitchAnd one I will catch soon:The barbel-palping catfish—The mole thinks there’s no moon

One from graveyards lurches,One swims beneath for me,One the moist night searchesIn silent symmetry


59


LAMENTATION AND PRAYER [translated from the Polish]

Dearest and beloved SonLet your mother share your wounds,Every day, beloved oneIn my heart you have been borne,Devotion faithful to you, steady.Speak to me and make me happyThough, my cherished hope, you leave me.

[Holy Cross Lament, 15th century]

No my mother, do not mourn me,Heaven-crowned and ever chaste,Always in your bosom keep me.Hail Mary, full of grace.

[Prayer inscribed on the wall of cell no. 3, basement of Gestapo headquarters, Zakopane;beneath is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakowna and the words“18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944”]

ENVOI[In English]

And in those dreadful waysWhere all at once the treesShed their leaves in summerWe call upon you, Mother

And in those dreadful landsWhere winter takes our handsAnd pulls us to a slaughter,Mother, son and daughter

We call upon His nameThat overshadowed flameIn mysteries of deathWhere you and He have met


60


AGAINST THE VOID

The emptiness can croak and groan:I am empty, let me fillThe void in you and be my ownDo not fight, I rise, be still

I am the ghost that fleshless speaksBut has no presence you can touch,Denying all that spirit seeks,Bodiless and yet can fetch

I draw to death the father’s childBy nothingness that can persuade,The wombless infant put to trialBy knife and forceps to debride

I am the void in which you pourYour hope and love, the bottomlessVacuum which you ignoreTo cross the bridge of lovelessness

I am the puff which has no lipsReminds you in a voiceless hissThat I can grasp though have no gripThat I can kill by hopelessness

There is nothing I can fearExcept you call upon that lightWhich centers on a boundless sphereAnd spreads by uttering – the Christ

Though I am empty He is allThough I am nothing He is OneAnd if you say His name I fallAnd when He speaks I have no tongue


61


THE SECOND MARK

Who slashed the face of God’s mother,Black Madonna, Czestochowa?A common soldier

Her face smoke-blackened by the praiseOf candles and of holy days,She holds her infant Jesus

Or does He steady her as sheBeholds His future, whip by tree?No angels now His mother sees

Slash her face and slash the sky,It will be stormy by and by,The red clouds bloody

Town of all the towns on EarthWhere mothers give their Jesus birthTo suffer wrath

Tell me who invades the graceOf love to slash a mother’s face,And of what race?

It is the violent and impureSoul of mankind that He curesBy sacrifice

Disfigured face that wounded flowsWith sorrow only Mary knows,Mother, that her grieving shows

All who love what has been slainBear this second mark of Cain,For love’s sake alone

Pavel ChichikovAugust 2, 2004

62


PRAYER

That which is mine is takenBut that which is His is given

Memory fills from the bottomBut trees on the hillside have fallen

Light of the daylight has lengthenedDusk of the surfaces softens

Hours of visions must lessenBut watchfulness waking must strengthen

What has been done is forgivenBut what is undone is forgotten

Let me not now be forsakenWhen all of my giving is taken


63


FEATHER

Feather on the trailFrom a RedtailA stippled male

Struck by a crowNot long agoWith claw and toe

Slipped now awayDrawn off by preyDownwind to slay

Soars and slidesAbove hillsidesWhere quarry hides

But on the groundWing feather downStriped white and brown

EvidenceProvoking senseOf God’s absence

To grapple treasure,Souls His pleasure—Bird without measure


64


THE TOKEN

A goldfinch on a wireA chip of goldLands on a sunflower

Gold falls and fluttersOut of treesDescends from rain gutters

This goldfinch’s delight—To sit on sun beamsAnd be bright

I will give My heart of gold—No bill—That’s neither bought nor sold

And so I can presentThe gold it isThis goldfinch I have sent


65


THE APPOINTMENT

Christ has an appointment with himBut the gentleman is busySo the receptionist tells Christ to wait in the anteroom

The gentleman is talking on the telephoneTo his wife, his mistress, his broker, his bookieHis tailor, his astrologer and his personal trainer

Christ sits down and leafs through a magazineWhich contains the life of the gentlemanFrom womb to tomb and beyond

The receptionist, when she gets ready to, signalsthe gentleman.

Christ is waiting to see you, she tells him.Does he have an appointment? asks the gentleman

That’s why I’m asking, says the receptionist.I wasn’t sure you had made one on your own.Tell Christ to wait, says the gentleman.

Christ flips through the magazine, and after a while He gets up.Are You leaving? asks the receptionist.Yes, I have to be somewhere else, says Christ.

What a shame, she tells him. Would You like to leavea message for the gentleman?

Yes, Christ tells her. Please tell the gentlemanI have his eternity with me, but I can leave it another time.

Christ leaves. After a while she gives the gentlemanChrist’s message.

The gentleman feels a bit anxious. He begins to rummageThrough his pockets, through the drawers of his desk

I didn’t know I had one. But perhaps it exists.If it does it should be here somewhere, says the gentleman.Since when did I give it to someone else?


66


THE TRAM

I’ve been invited to the birds’ houseWhere the bluebirds liveAn old tram filled with straw

The yellow of the hour before full duskThe crimson of dusk’s last momentsAre the sides of the tram

When the hour of dusk has comeThe slow tram sinks on railsWith the straw and birds of the sky at rest

And the straw flames up with a fireThat burns from afarAs the tram descends

Slides on the rails of the hourInto the roundhouseBeneath the sun

Photograph those birds, they say,As soon as you canBefore that tram is put away

For as the sun goes down they singTransfigurationAnd the tram bells ring


67


LESS THAN A MOUSE

Can you fit through the eye of a needle?How big is your watery hump?Hold in your breath, big camel

The sides bend out and in—Now through the narrow bright gateWho will push, who will pull you thin?

Impossible, big noseTo displace this thin forged steelNo matter how much you grow

If you dwindle to a donkey’s sizeOr even lessIt would be wise

Soft-footed beast, grow small—Less than a mouse if you pleaseAnd then even pass through a wall


68


THE ROOM

Avoid this storyA story you lived inBut leave when you canWhile the windows still open

For the story has gesturesAnd the walls are a fistFive fingers, a palmWhich tell of themselves

The story had chambersPeople could liveWhere the rooms had wallsAnd the light shone in

People lived thereAnd the story saved themThe story was theirsIt held them in

The story lives nowAnd the people are toldLike fictionsLike fables, like morbid tales

The room is a mouthWith a gullet and a tongueFingers that stretchAnd close, and sign

The story has wordsBut the people are woodMortar and stoneSilence and dust

And now the roomFinds a sliver of glassTo focus the sunAnd then it burns


69


AGAIN

You can say that the first footstepHas not yet fallenAnd met the first shadow

Or that the first word utteredHas met the first tympanumAnd shuddered

For all has just begun—One who rises from the groundAnd the first garden

All young, all new made—The lenses of the fallen dropsAnd the new shade

The first One comes forthAnd every color to its complement—The first warmth

And so will come to be the endAnd finallyThe first love again


70


DEMON

The mind enters its own cell,It waits there to be fed,But no strict jailer knows so wellThose walls, the awkward bed

As that self-dreaming inmateWho pulls and shuts the door,For lack of light to suffocate,A breathing to ignore

Until a voice can summon,Encourage to push out,To leave the double demonReluctant to its doubt


71


BIG FLOWER

A goldfinch balancing on swaying basil,Ten grams that will not bruise a reed,Swings on a green stalk

A bird’s tower of oval leaves Grows thin-stalked,Stiff enough to hold a goldfinch

The sun can also grow On stems of sunlight,Sways by what weight around the shadows?


72


MESSAGE

The mockingbird I’ve seen beforeOf mockingbird posterityGrips the rail around the shadeCocks its eye and looks at me

Yellow shade within, and outA garden and a blaze of green,Young sunflower, dogwood tree,Midmorning summer, hot and clean

Drop your book and look at me,Eyes that see can read the word—Bright of eye and grey of featherWhat’s the meaning of a bird?

Calm and still, calm and quietShade inside the heat of day,Flick of wings, inclining forwardThe messenger leans off, away

Later there’s a matte grey feather,Quill between the growing bladesCast away to be discoveredBy someone rising from the shade


73


THAT WILL NOT DIE

Summer leaves can hum,The wind is spinning webs,Spider with translucent limbsHorizon-spanning legs

Seven are its eyesCalled the seven stars,Seven PleiadesLooking for our wars

Eager to be fedAs soon the web is done On all the captured deadFathers and their sons

Let the remnant weep,The wind above can shrill,Insatiable to keepThe secrets that we kill

Hickory and oakBending to the sky—Every tree may fallBut day will never die


74


THE LOST

Fog in the woods, go with a compassRemember the heading, go by dead reckoningRemember the time departed from baseCount up the seconds, the mental retrace

Do not forget the time of departure—Clouds are the thickest in forests of warShadowless, formless, no apertureThrough which to depart, no crack-lighted door

Carefully searching, the scent and the feelOf something approaching, behind and aroundBut never ahead, the near, the unreal—It is your own heart, not stepping that sounds

Who is the hunter, the hunted, the prey?To those who can trust is granted the prizeThe knowledge that comes of invisible ways,To see without eyes


75


A HYMN OF PRAISE

I owe a debt of gratitudeHave nothing I can bring,Nothing has the best of giftsIf nothingness can sing

Hymn and chant and sacred tune,Melisma, fall and rise,Melody that is immuneTo all decay that dies

How can it be that molded clayCan break into a song,Praise the lifting of the dayOr nocturne all night long

Nothing knows its proper placeBelow the feet of glory,But love exalts eternally,Transcends the transitory

If I were thrush to sing withinA thicket in the shade,My soul would be a little thingThat praised that I was made

And if I am a little moreI would be none the lessAn instrument that can adoreThe Glory that can bless


76


IGNORING OUR SURPRISE—a reply

I also looked above the deck of stars,That rolling of the twice-eternal sea,Once in meaning, once in voyagesFrom timelessness to strange eternity,And there I knew myself a single eyeNo more than that essential to acquireEach separate spot of their enormity,Drop by drop the photons of their fire

For what am I that should be linked to themBy sight, by mind, by shrewd investigation,Like giant trees that balance with a stem,A brittle jar that holds a violent ocean—For they and we are one by one design,All in one unity, yet unconfined

Pavel ChichikovSeptember 2, 2004

77


ICE

Armies of ice, cities of iceWar underway, ice on the wings,Ice is the spoiler of every deviceIce is the shadow that covers all things

Heavy the veil deforming the spar,Twisting the camber of what should be light,Nothing is airborne and here is the warBeginning and yet we’re unable to fight

Pray for the daylight to melt and releaseOur killing machines, the planes and the guns—Pray not to find when the freezing has ceasedThat we are the ice and will melt in the sun


78


THE SHADOW

The shadow rises taller than the atmosphere,Throws a sterile chill across a hemisphere,As the planet turns it remains in one place,All fall bewildered before its blank face

Is it an angel, a spirit of ill-tidings?Is it the fallout of stony impacts rising?Is it the dust veil of Earth’s ecliptic path?Or is it the falling of a lid of wrath?

Is it the coming of One who was foretold?There is no such signal here, only the coldThat comes of the hiding of the sun’s warm eye—It is the effect of every human lie

That all will be well if we serve our desires(Those who assert this are self-blinded liars)That life is alone, and is short and has an endAnd one must be a crony but never a friend

The inner and the outer meet at the wallWhere anarchy and egoism touch and stall,Then out of their mixing rises the frostOf the breath of the darkness and the cries of the lost


79


OLD ONE

Old one on his pinsThin as is his caneStaring at his shinsDown the aisle he came

Never bent his kneesOr lifted up his headHow long will it beBefore he joins the dead?

Bread unfleshed and rudeWine unsanctifiedMake the flesh and bloodThat living now has died

A little sacramentOffered to the greatSanctified is sentFor Christ to celebrate


80


SHEPHERD

Pygmy goats as white as teethCrop the grass across the heath,Rain as rich as it is greenHides the half of them unseen

As Solomon to his belovedRain and grass are hand in glove,White her teeth beneath her lipsHe kisses with a dainty sip

But now the summer late grows dark,Shadows make their painted markWithin whose curves the deer are kept—You cannot see them till they step

Meadow grass and fallen treesWhile up the sky the storm clouds freeze,But high enough to be no woeTill early come the autumn snows

Then the wild become the tame—Let every beast receive a nameTo best be called when time has comeTo leap the coming of the Son

Let them caper, let them leap,The pygmy goats, the ragged sheepTo greet His coming in their crowds—The Shepherd of the herds of clouds


81


THE BRONZE SEA

If you walk in the forestAfter the rainWith your head held downAll you can see Is the curled bronze cup Of a leaf containing an ocean

Is that enough?Yes, the clear world is foundInside the bronze seaAnd all of its sacrificed facesStare up Looking out at me


82


BORDER GUARD

He’s a simple youth, but one with powerPimply faced and blank he clacks the keysOf that mysterious and wise computerThat searches for you but you cannot see

Behind a plastic shield, reflective coffin,He bows his head in secular confusion—Let you in to visit or to question?Feed you caviar and toast—or poison?

It isn’t you, he says—I’ve lost some weight—He types again, a clatter as of feet,Hooves that gallop splashing through my fate,The horses of apocalypsis— they eat meat

But something leaps away, as if a stormHad jumped you overhead, and you are freeTo find your fugue—perpetual alarm—Nightmare of complex anxiety

Would that there were nothing like this then—A frontier of another sort before—Anxiety’s dementia at an end,Immensity’s kind mercy at the door


83


KHLEB

Bread trucks with the stencil of a prayerRedundantly, the white on blue reads “bread”On cold November mornings, near Dzerzhinsky Square

The bread inside is really, Cain-like, fleshThe priestly state has offered to itself,Self-consecrated, self-confessed

Across the sweating cobbles tires spin,Vault the iron threshold of a world,Disappear where nothing free goes in

Break the bread of heaven made on Earth,For here the separate kingdoms are reversed,Hell is heaven, heaven hell, salvation cursed

Saint Louis of the French, a church, is nearOn Malaya Lyubyanka, where I sawGod’s body braced against the Church of Fear


84


GLOVES OFF

Lady Love was once called AphroditeWho, rising from the sea sans glove or nightieBalanced on a surfboard scallop shellAnd rode the waves to Cyprus, liars tell

She’s a creature, goddesses grow oldThough once a pretty lady, mold is moldImage new as we were, she knew joySemi-precious passing, base alloy

But there’s another metal which can glowUndyingly undressed, I’ve seen it soNot Venus’ love, venereal, which fadesBut love that’s never born and never made

Unartificed, has never needed fire,Pure, unclothed, and unextoled by liars


85


LOGOS IIFor Germain and Jeannette

It’s hard to remember that he’sNear, ever present, around usIn this room, in this air, this water

Drink, breathe and eat ChristChrist who loves you, Christ who beholds youChrist who pries you from your death

O yes, that marriage is not validHe has divorced you from oblivionAnd wed you to his glorious name

No blowing spume, no phantasmStrolled from trough to crestAnd through the veils of rain

No specter roasted elfin perchIn resinous dry flames—It was real hunger he assuaged

And when he offered ransomed wineWhich had no ferment from beforeHe married bride and groom to paradise


86


Awake, soul, the bell has rung

87


BRAVISIMO!Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

The monkey serenades the assThe donkey brays: hee haw,Across the strings his fingers passGlissando re mi fa

The donkey fans his forelock withAn elegant small hoof,And shuts his eyes his lashes’ widthIn connoiseurship’s proof

Across his teeth a smile appearsSo sweet the ape’s guitar,He softly flaps his supple earsAnd dreams upon a star

The nightingale, the lark, the wrenFall silent in their awe,To hear the concert of the apeThe donkey swoon: hee haw


88


TU QUE NO PUEDESHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

They can’t resist, these helots mustHoist those donkeys, human lusts,Those were colts that have increased—Heave them up, hee hawing beasts

Not incubi but donkeys grownBy greediness to many stone,Lust for money, power, pride,Demon donkeys mount and ride

Who has not been stooped and bentExcept the very innocent?They bear that rule until they faintExcept the jackass and the saint


89


EL SUENO DE LA RAZON PRODUCE MONSTRUOSHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

The sun is in the south at oneEquinox has just begun,Owls up, their eyes are mirrorsIn which reflect my fatal errors

Dreams of reason monsters get,Reason is a silhouette,See it creep across the groundLonger as the sun goes down

Eyes of onyx, naked wingsClaws of horn, poison stings,Monsters of my reason thriveExcept the cause to stay alive

That which sleeps will meet againThe waking self without an end,Preposterous to reason soReason is the last to know


90


DUENDECITOSHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Little clowns, drink deeply from the cupSuch long fingers, eyes to drink us up,Devilettes and devilkins, you’re oursEnclosed within penumbras of our auras

Stunted members, legs need not be longThough diminutive their arms are strong,Simian, from moonbeams they can stretchSend those devils begging – they can fetch

They belong to us, and we to themDomesticated devils, devil friends,Large as pumpkins grinning are their headsThrifty-keeping—they live under beds

Acknowledge or deny them as you wishDine at night—the devils lick the dish


91


NI MAS NI MENOSHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Monkey, paint my portrait pleaseBut wait awhile until I sneeze,Paint me solemn, with a wigMy ears are tall, my forelock trig

Shut my nostrils, stretch my jawMy father was an ass-at-law,I’ve his features, he had mineThe jennies said: an ass divine

Yes, my donkey, do not fearAs you wish, so you appear,Dignity and strength are yoursIn every feature nature snores

I mean she dreams, and sees you fairA touch up here, a touch up there,Neither more nor ever lessThan what’s the truth. Achoo! God bless!


92


ASTA SU ABUELOHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

See my noble ancestors, my lineOn parchment sir, that lineage is mine,Sire, sire’s sire, dam, granddamBack to where the primal ass began

Pure the blood and noble is the noseThat nibbled on the petals of the rose,Bright and clear the gloss upon the eye—Contemplate—their fame will never die!

Hear them haw, sophisticated drawlAs ever emanated from a stall,Imagine, anyway, how they might sound Were they still alive—a hee profound

They galloped into battle with panache,That’s quality I’m showing you—not trash;Visitor, look on these heads, admireA dam with ears, a turnip-stealing sire


93


NADA. ELLO DIRÁHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Mandatum of the dead. Sign, that is your name.A nominal: read “nothing”Then to your oblivion

Decompose regretIndignation and surprise;Dissolve into a vicious inkOf flesh and eyes

Rise up, bend forward, writeA message you can send,Make yourself a stiffened armA hand, a pen

Chaos is a reckless war, dismissThe dead who dwellWhere the living leave them,And go to hell


94


SI, SON DE OTRO LINAGEHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

The stubbled skull who sits among His babies’ bones shouts out his lungs,Not one of us despite this plea,A thing of unknown pedigree

We are a race that’s warm and fed,Scuffs aside the rabble-deadSo it can walk around the hillThat hides the charnel, carcass-full

Complain to God? —your shaven head,Your sunken eyes take off the dead,Your throne’s a pile of stone and dirt,A king who’s shrunk inside his shirt

You can’t be human, or if soOf what descent is hard to know,Perhaps an ape that’s learned to speak,Half inhuman, half a freak

Another species, not of us—*Homo homini lupus…*


95


LAS CAMAS DE LA MUERTEHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

A shawl conceals her virgin form and face;I will not look, the covered dead perceiveFrom their abandonment and our disgrace—Even those who minister must leave

Bed of sorrow, road and street of flame(Stone as well as human flesh can burn);Let her go and with her is her name,Merciful and ever-grieving one

The life of God is hooded with a shawl—Raise it up to see the Blessed Virgin;Use the clay of innocents for walls,Pass before the masonry of ruin


96


ESTO ES PEORHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

To waste this meat the soldiers must have fedOr else, on human fatback they might feed—Perhaps the scarecrow’s living, maybe dead

It grows more tender as it sags, and looksAbout itself for mercy, explanation,Maybe fellow haunches on a hook

Someone claps his hands, choreographsImpalement as a scene, a fine tableauThat moves and groans sometimes—he laughs

What’s shiftier or cleverer than man?He ploughs and seeds the field of warWith clotted blood, then covers it with sand

So clever and ingenious in defenseThat even cultivated torment is of use,To be amused, relax—homo ludens

And what will grow is human corn and wheatA stem that’s strong enough to bearA conscious, gazing fruit of bloody meat


97


“Gloria! Laudibus regina Iocasta in pestilentibus Thebis”

Golden eyes like owl’s eyes shimmer down—Do they channel light or are they discsReflecting only fragments of the sun,Coins to buy the passage of the Styx?

Those are hers, the hoodwinked queen of ThebesWho thought she was informed in royal power;Rich in every harvest, now the grave’s,She cut the bitter grain of fate the sower

Glory to her, she’s our wine and bread,Pride betrayed us, she’ll betray us yet—Sensitive as gold, as warm as leadA castle wall as solid as a net

Owl goddess, mother, wife and child,Move your wings and speak—Thebes is defiled


98


ESTRAGOS DE LA GUERRAHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

A demon drops them down there by caprice,The satan Highest Noon who loathes the shade,A satan of the moon who has no face—Whose head is that, whose legs are splayed?

Hear the dull concussion, woman, child,Explosions’ gleam fluorescent on the rim,Headless, footless, faceless bodies piled—Some incubus has torn them limb from limb

A monster, sphinx or devil lets them go,Carcasses of sorrow and remorse—Insatiable and stupid imago,Cannibal who fattens corpse by corpse

Sober, drunk and murderous, well met—The eater of the dead, the eater’s pet

Pavel ChichikovOctober 2, 2004

99


TRISTES PRESENTIMIENTOS DE LO QUE HA DE ACONTECER Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Sad presentiments of what must come to be—On my knees—behind me nightmares dwell—I lead the congregations of the dead who prayOn death’s cold rim, the lucid edge of hell

I spread my hands to gather in the ghostsThat are to come—I see them in the dark,Draft appearing outlines of disfigured hosts,The savage soldiers and their butcher work

In darkness, then by tallow candlelightI see, have seen, and will see more againBecause my eyes like Paul’s achieve new sight—I also hear the snapping of the guns

Like fingers of a lord who beckons slavesAnd then by magic servants digs their graves


100


GRANDE HAZAÑA! CON MUERTOS!Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

An abattoir of war, this stunted oak—Deeds against the dead in master strokes,Carcasses and legs and private partsHung above the ground as butcher’s arts

Show them to the sky and to the earth—Show them what a renegade is worth,Winter is the slaughter of the leaves:Cowardice the sacrament of thieves

Also to ourselves we will confessSilently the slash of our distress,How by this we pacify the rear,How by this we amputate our fear

Here the unbelievers are the priests,Slaughter is the office of the beast


101


LAS RESULTASHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Suckers when the dead are slainWith leather wings and faces plainAs clerks and lawyers, men of parts,Mount their chests and suck on hearts

Who’s the corpse – your father, son?There’s enough for everyone—Human heads and heads of owlsEven faces veiled by cowls

Membranes stretched along their ribsThey purse their mouths like steel-tipped nibsAnd draw warm ink from auriclesFlaccid veins and ventricles

Ink they spew to write accounts,Ink ingested through their snouts—Hear the dry unholy flap,The chafing sound when they fold up

Human heads and bodies squatThey circle at the sound of shots


102


CONTRA EL BIEN GENERALHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Giant ears the venous wings of bats,A chronicle of war sits on his lap,Historian, between his pointed clawsThe pen of death, the lawlessness of laws

An epic of the fight, his own account—The nib is running blood and writes it out—Homer, Mephistopheles and Faust,With talons on his toes, a prissy mouth

Like Moses on the battlements of GodHe’s far above the slaughter of the mob,Writing up commandments for a battle—Sorrow is the bellowing of cattle

But sometimes there’s a passage to amend —He shakes the bloody spatters from his pen,Strikes a name and scrawls another in—He doesn’t know the hero till he wins


103


GATESCA PANTOMIMAHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Do we worship cats? Is it an idol?Sanctified the feline eidolon, Twitches, breathes— the effigy is real,Couching on an altar made of stone

What beast is this, what sovereign of this place?A coward mob adores it, and a friarBows, a shadow covering his face,To that which kills the truth and spares the liar

An owl with enormous eyes, spread-winged,Sets on from the right, and all must waitTo know if this gigantic cat will spring—Silent is the temple of the fates

A fantasy? Delirium? Oh no,A veritable place where all may speakWhatever is unspoken and may showSubmission to the master by the weak

Bow down to the master, stoop and bend,Cover up your face if you approach,Offer to obey, and serve, and sendYour child to it, to carry and to fetch


104


FARANDULA DE CHARLATANESHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

A parrot in a cassock – the torso is a man,Is it a chimera or a priest?A laughing ass, a laughing hound, a swine at his command,Master of a mockery of beasts

Why the genuflection with imploring human armsSpread in exhortation or in prayer?A homily to heaven, a sermon to the worms,A signal to the spirits of the air?

The undulating mob in the ripple of a dream,Malarial, a vehemence of dread—The judge and the fanatic, their rectitude and blame,The double-mounted faces of the dead

Eyes that look above, eyes that look beneath,The ram of desolation has arrived,Candles of the terrified who light them from his breath,The blessings of infernal paradise


105


THE FORESTER

I met Him once againHe’s tall and holds a rosary in His right handThough no one saw the rosary but me

He’s young and has dark hair, eyes of recollection,Aware of everything and yet an inward knowledge,For all is circumscribed within that frame

He walks along the trail, the flood-plain of my heartAnd sees how scrub has grownWhere once the poplar and the maple flourished

The owl and the hawk meet there at dawnThe fox returns at sunset to her kits,My soul to feed its charity with dreams

He walks this world with beads in His right handAnd counts each tree, each leafAnd sees them fall, just as He fell himself

And yet He meets us, and regards usAs He does the forest which he made,This Forester of souls


106


QUE SE ROMPE LA CUERDAHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

May the cord break! May the cord break!May the foolish cord, the stupid, stubborn cordThe cord above the crowd, naïve, transfixed—And may the gymnast balancingThat arm-extending mountebank, that fraudThat death-defying tightrope walker Feel the sting of stubborn fibers snapThe rush of air, the flaring of his capeAnd see their faces rushing toward himSee their horrified expressions swell,And then he’ll crush as many as he canBeneath his silken weight, those instrumentsWho think that mortal power is salvationWho think that God adores the powerful,The smooth who heel-and-toe upon belief—That foolish cord, that cable of betrayed desireMay it break, and may it let him fall!


107


NO SE PUEDE MIRARHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

After this, I want to see Caprices—Freaks and devils nothing to compareWith human demonry and human faces,The hellishness of Golgotha is thereWhen rifles leveled give the coup de graceIf they hit home, or else some time to dieWith eyes shot out, a severed artery,Clepsydra that runs the spirit free

Pitiless, the arbiter is chance,Necessity the courtroom and the dock,Corpses’ culpability is silence,Justice is the ticking of the clock;Take them under fire, shouts the colonel—I’d rather see the carnivals of hellThan what will happen next, let me not dwellOn parodies no Lucifer would mock

Waste of breath to scream: What have we done?Mother, father, ancestor and son


108


ENTERRAR Y CALLARHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Bury them, be still – or did you know them?Are they yours? You do not grasp them now,What they discovered you have never seen,And what they knew is what you soon may know

Who left them here? What reason did they haveFor spilling them like rubbish in the field?Who would suppose that they were ever loved,These models of the dead, this wax unsealed

Injustice such that flesh may never judge—Be silent and lift up the spade and pickTo scrape them into refuge in the mud,Eyes and mouths and nostrils under it

He who has created must conveneAnother world to raise what we have seen


109


DESASTRES—CAPRICHOSHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Etch us in a rage and we convince,Finished long ago and bleeding since,Sorrow and refusal to accept,Fury that the images have kept—Hombre, I am living and the deadCannot speak, but I can speak instead

And as for the satanic and the weirdDevilry is worse than you have fearedSee how from the sombre they invadeEven in the sunlight they won’t fadeTransient are vanity and lustBut there’s a dark eternal in the dust


110


CRUEL LÁSTIMA

I am one who does not suffer thisAnd therefore my compassion is no risk

111


HASTA LA MUERTEHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Primping, patting, tries her bonnet on,Mirrored in her dotage as she gleams—Skinny hen admiring a swanShe’s still a gliding beauty in her dreams

Winking at the one that she adores;Two dimensions show her faultlessly—Hearing her admirers’ applauseShe knows the silken stunner there is she

Pathos, bathos, satire, and truth,Those who find her laughable will gazeSquinting at their own crepuscle youth:“Aren’t mirrors made as in our days?”

Even until death we won’t surrenderCounterfeited love, illegal tender


112


QUE VALOR!Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Shoot them! Feed them fire, valiant woman,The dead become your deck, and what display!Set the flaming match, arouse the gun,The Frenchmen fly apart, the cannon slays

Etching in a silence, something’s wrong,The war against the French was long ago,Renegades are generations gone,All above the graves the forests grow

No, she’s still alive, she holds the match,Iron in the barrel seems to quiver,A running of the seconds seems to catch—Then fire in the hole, the shot deliver!

How can she be living and still dead?The sacrament of fortitude is bread


113


DURO ES EL PASOHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Let me not flinch or weep, the rope and ladderLead away to death, the seconds gatherInto one clenched knot, one beat, one pulse,Into a fright that makes my heart convulse,Though always in the past it was anotherWho saw the scaffold rise, the light diminishAnd every faithless consolation vanish

Now the friar holds the crucifixBefore my face as if he could annexAnother’s bitter suffering to mine,Christ’s bitter double-crossing and my own—But now I see my wall of hours crack,The sun spring upward like a flashing sword—Where is my sanctuary—Christ my Lord?


114


MOTIONLESS

The buck with seven tines stood still,Challenged me as I walked upThe crooked trail that crossed the hill—A doe was near, the stag in rut

Coming toward him as he stoodAlthough a buck will flinch and go,Motionless as ironwoodHe repelled me from his doe

Antlers arching on his backWithers up and thick of chest,Bulging eyes enamel black,Dusk descending in the west

A buck with seven points of boneOn the left and on the right,Down the sun and she alone,He the day and she the night


115


SONGBy Bulat Okudzhava (1924 – 1997)[translated from the Russian]

In the time of Rome, the era of declineJudging by appearances, everything was fine.The chief was in control, his comrades in array,Existence was just beautiful, so the stories say

But critics will maintain, the recent word “comrade” isn’t even Roman That this mistake dissolves my song to slurry,Maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the Roman oneIt’s really not a worryI won’t say I’m sorry

The young men of the empire’s era of decayDreamed of shooting tommy guns and how to slay,Sometimes in attack, sometimes in retreatSometimes in the Pamirs, and sometimes in the street

But critics will maintain, the modern word “gun” isn’t even Roman,That this mistake dissolves my song to slurry,Maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the Roman oneIt’s really not a worryI won’t say I’m sorry

The peasants of the empire’s era of declineAte what they could grab, and then they all got smashedAnd when they got their hangovers they guzzled down some brineThey didn’t know the era of the empire had passed

But critics will maintain, the Russian word “brine” isn’t even RomanThat this mistake dissolves my song to slurry,Maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the Roman oneIt’s really not a worryI won’t say I’m sorry

The women of the empire in the era of declineOnly they, those sweetiepies, didn’t they look fine!No barriers could stop them, they’d ignore ‘em,If they wanted to they’d work, or else go to the forum

116


The critics in a chorus sing: “the forum, ah the forum”, a word that’s really Roman,A little word so perfect it must be heaven sent!Maybe, maybe, maybe, it is a Roman oneBut that’s not what I meant,It ruins my intent.


117


TO THE MEMORY OF A. D. SAKHAROVBy Bulat Okudzhava (1924 – 1997)[translated from the Russian]

When homilies begin, that holiness is lost,The way for people now runs through the darkness,Their souls astonished burn, despite the dreadful cost,Like fires to give holy light and perish

This is no false delusion, no deviating error,It is the lordly breaking out of flame—Within the light of justice is triumph over terror,A smile of hope, morality untamed

Their midnight silhouettes, their secrets unrevealed,Frighten me, no triumph can I taste,Fate is still discrete, her victory’s concealed,The dawn is distant still—and my heart breaks


118


DREAM FOR US…By Bulat Okudzhava (1924 – 1997)[translated from the Russian]

Dream for us a dictatorWho’ll rule our hearts alone,He’ll be our childhood’s conquerorUntil the old age home

Make for him a moustacheLet’s put in cruel eyes,Boots that fall as light as ash,We’ll vote him in with “ayes”

Do us up a despot,The one that we prefer,Then there’ll be no crackpotTo say we made an error

Let him bully one and all,From shadows shake a finger,Until at last it will befall—He will be our creator


119


DESPACHA, QUE DISPIÉRTANHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Hurry up, they’re waking, what’s that in the dish?A crooked crust, a rind of fat, perhaps a fin of fish—Bellows up the fire, scrape the pewter clean,We’ll have a snack at midnight, be it fat or lean

Other things they leave for us, the morsels of their lies,The sour crumbs of cowardice, the love that they despise—How we love to cook them and gobble them with greaseWe render from their self-esteem, a gobbet if you please

Be quick my broom is quivering, it wants to taste the air,And also there’s a dreamer here who dreams that he’s at prayer,And if he should bestir himself he may take such a frightTo think he’s had an evil dream—he might

So let’s prepare a meal of them before they think to pray,Then all aboard, the night is black—straddle and away!


120


THE PARASITE

Her sallow face and violet eyes, her voiceStronger than a woman’s voice should be;Sometimes angels meet us but not this—Her midnight dog, her limp, hostility

She saw us coming, waited at the streamSmiled, and though we could have turned away,Crossed some other, safer bridge, we came—Some encounters may not be delayed

Up the mongrel jumped and champed its jaws,Snap, snap the wicked ivory teeth had shut;Madness has its own amazing laws—I will bite you, said the demon slut

It wasn’t she but something ferretingBehind her sallow face, her eyes, concealingIn a madness something dark and keen,Clear of mind, malevolent, unclean


121


THE IDOL

The great black bear on legs of smoke—A one-eyed cloud of night that driftsFrom fires that the demons stoke,Burning shadows, burning pitch

Set the beast a bacon box,The green eye swinging side to side;Evening opens up its locks,Hungry is the bear that glides

Dusk of hemlock, dusk of pine,Stands and columns closing in;Churches of a priestless kind,Panic tempted from its den

These were worshipped before Christ,Bafflement of devil wit,But something that is more unblessedThan bearish gods came after it

A self that will not be restrained,Offerings that beasts disdain


122


NADIE NOS HA VISTOHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

No one’s seen us, and the wineIs deeper than an ocean, denseAs summer seas, as blood and brine—No one sees us, drink at once

Drink it more and drink it soThat all their casks will ring like drums,Drink them till they’re damp and shallow,Drink them dry, for no one comes

Demon dry as bones, as sticksDry and bloodless as we are—When a beam of sunlight licksThe eastern wall we will go far

Across the world, behind the wall,Among the rafters, still and meekUntil the beasts of midnight call—Wait! I hear the hinges squeak

Silent laughter, it’s a soulLapping at its drinking bowl


123


LO QUE PUEDE UN SASTREHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Any skillful tailor canMake a stump look like a man—Hooded warnings, stiffened arms,Wood is all but it alarms

It can buy and it can sellSouls, they say, to bliss or hell,Robe and rope around its waistCurses cast for every taste

Hovering behind the headDevil birds and imps of dread,There’s a rider, legs astraddle—Cacodemon on an owl

There’s a flock—a skein of geese?Angels of an unfrocked priest(Wings unneeded since they flyLike the speckles in your eye)

Some mistaken souls devoteNine novenas to a goat,Others make the demons laughWorshipping a golden calf

Even wood can snare the heartIf it’s dressed to look the part


124


THE SILENT WOMAN

Not a dream, you move through one,Lady of the silent face,Never troubled yet when beckonedSwift in mercy, Queen of Grace

Yet the other night you led me,Guide without an utterance,Toward duration’s boundary,Lady of a troubled silence

Foster mother! baffled, lost,Wandering through time I go;Now I blunder through the past—Let me not be foolish so


125


ESTO ES LO PEORHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

This is worse, that wolves should reign,Wolf disposer, autocrat,Wolf the punisher of pain,Wolf the bane, the bureaucrat

All shall come beneath his chairShow the tonsure, smooth his fur—Contradict him who shall dare?Carnivore, the learned cur

Wolf of jealous eyes, of teeth,Jaw and ears and stinking tail,Wolf who pins the lamb to eat,Judges by the lamb’s entrails

Wolf debater, arbiter,Wolf for whom the bailiffs pray,Innocents’ devourer—Call the court on Judgment Day


126


QUIEN LO CREYERA!Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Animals who punch and pull,With skin and flesh their hands are full,Tear each other limb from limb,While through the darkness monsters swim—Who’d believe they’re not alone?One’s on top and one is prone,Demons brawling on a slabWithout a gun or knife to stab,Hands and knees and fists to killIf they’ve the strength to do such ill—What’s the issue? One exists,The other too, and both have fists,Up above and underneathClaws of envy, craving’s teeth


127


MIREN QUE GRABESHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Chimeric riders, steeds are they,Ursine mules and bears that bray,A sleepy-eyed tremendous swineStrides a mule with legs like mine,An eagle with a human chest,Human buttocks—all the rest—Maybe Goya’s fantasies,A fever dream, not what you’d seeIf you were sober, sane and well,Still alive, not sunk in hell;

Snap awake, look againAt bestial women, brutal men,The rippling and mutating shapesOf swine and asses, wolves and apes,The eagle’s cruel indifferent stare:Superbia astride—beware!


128


VOLAVERUNTHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Who’s the noble lady, her mantilla spread,Perching on a squadron of the living dead?Chamois on the Pyrenees can see her pass,Marble as a mountain and as smooth as brass,Lovely as a goddess’s her lofty mienEffortless as breezes is the weightless queen

Levitating underneath, the witches three:Indifference, vindictiveness and vanity—Massive as her majesty is spare and light,Poltergeistic movers of her magic flight,Dynamos of power over lovesick men,Surreptitious sisters of this courtesan

Tucking up their dresses underneath their knees,Heavy as her solitude they hum like bees


129


Y AUN NO SE VAN!Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Still you won’t go down, you won’t lie down,You’re bending back and straining, standing now,Levering the slab that held you, pressedIts bone-distorting burden to your chest

Stay where you belong, dread carrion,Renegade against decay, you putrid one,Let it go, you terrify us all—Fold yourself again, let darkness fall

If only we could hear a trumpet tongue,Recall pure and powerful, lie down!Back! You were not summoned, so we cry:Gather you to what you were and die

We beg of you, insurgent, we demand—Lie down in your grave and do not stand!“I will not die for then I go alone—Never—someone help me raise this stone.”


130


THE INVISIBLE

A sparrow in a shadbush whistles loudA doorman hailing taxis in a crowdSure enough the yellow taxis fallPoplars in October shed them all

Tiny, brown, a whistle loud as pipersOr babies shrilling to be changed of diapers,The sparrow in the bushes bows and whistlesTrinities of triple-note epistles

“Someone ate the berries on this treeLeaving nothing edible for me—Hey you! The invisible! I’m me!Is anybody here? I sing! Here’s three…”


131


MUCHO HAY QUE CHUPARHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

A witches’ basket full of little souls Sweet as sugar doughnuts, honey rolls, Thank you, dear, for coming back so soonBefore the morning setting of the moon

Little babies, no one wants them, thereIsn’t any room for them, so share –One for you and one for me and her;Would you like a boy? A girl prefer?

Puppies are more precious to a bitch,Those were just abandoned in a ditch,Breakfast after roaming is superb—Don’t you like the tender flesh with herbs?

A little box of dainties—what’s inside?Fabulous—they keep us well-supplied


132


THE CABIN

Golden coins that no one castGolden leaves descending fastPiled beneath the poplars

Scuff and thresh them, there fall more,Golden carpets to a doorHidden in a glade

Golden sunlight on a hillGolden roof and window sill,Slanting tiles arrayed

Golden panes, shingles goldGolden eaves and gold thresholdHouse that no one made

Who’s inside? Who can say?Where is he this autumn day?Is he home or gone away?

Walk around and look withinRoof no higher than my shinsAll as gold as light from heaven

Pavel ChichikovNovember 1, 2004

133


QUE VIENE EL COCOHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Has the missing one returnedOr has the earth been forked and turned?What face is that beneath the hoodWhat decomposed decrepitude?

What corpse or wizened revenantWhat emanation, vile and bent—They have their dreams but you have yoursWhat mothers know a child ignores

But what they dream you may not seeUntil a midnight comes to beWhen shadows of the light beyondThe open door stream through room

But who is it? She knows the face—Why do you come, and from what place?The little ones know something more:That something passes through a door


134


WHAT DO THEY MEAN?

Gold to the right, green to the leftDown to the stream the gold leaves sweptRafts of gold to carry lions

Lions in blurs, lions on fireFlanks of the lions twisting as wireSmothering the barges of the night

Lions of nightmare, lions of dreamsMenacing lions, what do they meanTo jostle me here?


135


LOS CHINCHILLASHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Human bedbugs, worms to be well fedOn some grey skyless plain beneath the world,Embryos unnamable, unbred,Forms adult, and yet somehow unformed

Eyes of stone, at least they have no sight—Locks secure their hearing from all speech,Flaccid bodies, virgin appetitesToneless arms incapable of reach

A foster devil, pinned with wolfish earsFeeds his grubs a pap by tarnished spoon:Gruel of dreams and hatreds, greeds and fears—He’ll lead them to the sunlight sometime soon

Then they’ll stand and celebrate, obeyAnd even by some miracle they’ll pray


136


LAST POEM

The pain which you avoid returns—Be it death or loveYour prayer is answered

No love has ever been a ghostNor is your death illusionThough eyes averted be and sleep

You will awake and seeAll that you have summonedStanding at your side

Ready to go forward with youInto what will beWhen you have died


137


PRAISE

Angels golden hairedSwaying in a wind?November and young oaksLeaves and lissome limbs

Gold a summer’s ageBut not the mane of youth,Metaphor that’s wagedAgainst the naked truth

Yet since we will praiseForever when unseasonedInfinities of days,Then praise beyond all reason

Praise by metaphorThat will become a fact:Leaves that never fallAnd never daylight lack

Praise because the reachOf wisdom is not farUnless perception teachBoth sight and metaphor

So let the tall trees swayPray alwaysPray by night and dayAnd praise


138


THE WAY OF WAR

Don’t wander in the forest, warned my sonTake a compass, watch the sun, the shadows,For when they lengthen long the day is done—In prophecy is strength the strong forgo

The trails are marked and broad, the leaves have fallen,Line of sight is plain and through the treesThe pointer of the sun, you know that son—Through two quadrants of a compass weaves

The shadows lengthen on the copper leavesWhile through the shallows of November duskThe serpent trails slough off their hollow husksAnd leave behind their dim transparencies

I have never been this way beforeBut here the way is lost—the way of war—Though the trails are marked they travel far And never come again to where they were


139


Y SE LE QUEMA LA CASAHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

The chair is on fireAs he sits in the chair in his nightshirtTo smoke the last pipe of the evening

The house is on fireAnd he smiles because he feels goodAnd the nightcap has smoothed his spirit

The house is on fire and the rafters are smokingAnd the walls turn hot with repressing heatWhile he thinks: Did I lock the front door?

Wake up! Wake up! The house is on fire –But he thinks of a warm tub next to the stoveAnd a nice long soak to unwind

What a fool! What a dunce!And his house in on fireBut he’s thinking of cash in the bank and his credit

And the old moon, belle dame, looks down from the nightLooks down from her orbit of ivory and satin:Wake up! Wake up! Your house is on fire, old man


140


THE CATHEDRALfor Benjamin Ludwig

Into the stables with you, ponies,The horses need company,And you brown cattle, with your bellows breathYou are a slow dark fire to be

Cold tonight, and in the forestThe deer expel white nostrils’ ghosts,Which in the silver light disperseInto the shadows’ fine frost

And the fox flits from glade to glade,I see her trotting near the stallsWhere the geldings snort and stamp their hoovesWhen the barred owl calls

Listen, cold people of the trees,We are burning your brothers in the hearth,Listen to their groaning voices,As the dry wood gives birth

We are here behind our walls,Animals and people of the tamed fire,Nations of a different race and breedFrom you, who share one Sire

And the great roof, its long braces,Crossed timbers strong and farClimbs to the unknowable bright spacesStar by star by star


141


LAST DAY

Someone sells the Earth, mountains, fields and shoresMantle and abyss, canyons, molten cores,Inventory buys a place outside to stand,Freehold takes possession, running sea and land

Everything for sale, inhabitants and beasts,Wind and water, air, famine and increase,Come to see the master where day and twilight meet,All the winds of night take up their wailing seat

See them in the valley, everyone who livesGathers to be judged, and to be witnesses;Who is it who sells, who is it who buys?Any old betrayer, anyone who lies

Day will be distrained, and some will come awaySome are for the daylight, and some of them will stay


142


MALA NOCHEHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

An evil wind, a dreadful night, the gale’s effectsEmbodied by the trees, the spirits and the intellect—Who is there? What sings? Where is the diamond light?Darkness and the jewel of apprehension, on this black night

Deep wind, dark wind, throatless is the sound,Trees take wing and fly, clouds are rooted in the ground,Night distorted, night that’s twisted, night of elemental shapeNight when every apparition is a mouthless gape

What source can send it? Where does it erupt?I have sent these winds, you have caught them up,I have sent them streaming to the furthest westNow they are returning from the blinded east

Winds of desiccation, winds of human lust,Winds of steady blowing, neither calm not gust,I will stand beside you, you will stand with me,Blow this evil wind of night by land and sea


143


SI SABRÁ MAS EL DISCIPULO?Homage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

In a school for the mules can the pupil know more?Can donkeys excel, can jackasses spellWhat teachers can’t write?

War after war, famine and crime, time after timeThe same ass’s error that leads to their terror –Battle or flight

The young ones are foolish, the elders are mulishThey fight over straw with a kick and hee haw—They’re cleverness proof

In the stable they jostle, their ears are colossalBut donkeys have never once learned to be clever—They die on the hoof


144


A CAZA DE DIENTESHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

A woman went hunting to find some goldShe found a hanged man strung up and coldThe wind gyrated and shook the old ropeThe corpse did a jig that would not stop

So she waited until the strong wind went calmAnd a voice in her head said: Proceed, Madame,She went on tiptoe and stared in his faceFor no one stood guard in the hanging place,But o how terrible, o what terrorShe felt when she gazed at the swollen cadaverFrom the length of her arm at his bullfrogged eyes,Tongue bloated up to thrice its size,The face of a human, the face of a manAnd yet so disfigured, the strung up one—It made her feel helpless, queasy and weakTo think that the body might see her and speak

Would he be angry to know that she sought forThe gold in his mouth, incisor or molar?She took the silk handkerchief out of her bodiceHeld it before her, screen from his malice—Corpses are harmless and yet they remindHow jealous the dead, how yet unresigned,Hideous too when violence has priedBreath from their bodies, light from their eyes—But that was no reason for her to forestallHer gaze from the carcass, it was nothing at all,She had seen carcasses, plenty beforeSince hanging and shooting abound in a war

Perhaps it was fear of herself not anotherBecause the cadaver was her own lover

A woman went hunting to find some goldShe found a hanged man strung up and cold…


http://goya.unizar.es/InfoGoya/Obra/Catalogo_/Grabado_/C12p.html

145


OWL BY DAY

Out in the daylight, owl of night?I saw your gray wings spread in flightBetween November and December(Sky as gray as owl feather)Withered trees and yet still tallBetween the two your hollow call

Out in daylight? Hollow voice,Great horned owl, out by choice?Driven from a daylight place,Slanting rafters of a spruce—Was it some uneasy dreamBeneath the cover of your wing?

Let me see your yellow eyesBlink them open, some say wiseBut others mirrors to be seen,Yellow suns by which you preenOpen, let me see them now—Owl crescent, great horned owl

Yellow surface, yellow glazeBlackest pupils two black daysAnd in the yellow I see cracksBy which to read the future’s tracks,One goes up and one goes down—And that’s the way the future’s shown


146


SUEŇO DE LA MENTIRA Y DE LA INCONSTANCIAHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

This dream is an abyssAbyssal plain, deepest depthDim landscape flat asDeeply dreaming shallow pulsesYet diligent with restlessnessThis dream is an abyss

A one-faced man is alien To this inconstant kingdomWe are double-visaged wormsAs one face to the other bendsYet both are humanThe one-faced man is alien

Who knows what we really are?One-faced promises bestowedThen spun to be againA loving friendWhile opposite’s a foeWho knows what we really are?

Sleep! For we grow lessIn daylight we disperseThen within illusion’s duskNight casts off her dreaming huskSerpents of deception hiss:Sleep! For we grow less

A distant castle on the plain,Holds the secret of our namesCastle of the traitorousWavering and windowlessMassive walls of stone remainA distant fastness on the plain


147


EL AMOR Y LA MUERTEHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

No use to lamentYou cannot pierce the wallA finger’s width, a shout,Whisper, love’s recall

Or love’s exultant forceThat cannot move the dead,For time is not reversedDeath is not unbled

Life must not be presentLover must remain,Anima be absentAnd love will have no claim

This artifact you holdA manikin still warm –Swiftly growing coldImpervious to harm

But you must suffer stillWhat hopelessness may bring,Though love may not be killedBy any earthly thing


148


IN LIGHTFor Gerard Bugge

Gerard, we pushed you up the hillAnd the wheelchair pushed us back—This resistance is called death

The human soul is ponderous When it lives inside the flesh—Protests against its prison

In this cell a stubborn light—Through the window and the wallIllumination, laughter, love

You were known to us through this:Joyful lightness, flesh of God,Clothed within a lifespan

Sacred light that we have seenJoining flame to flame convenedPurified as fire is


149


HUMAN VOICES

Human voices in the woodsInvisible through copper screens,Chatter and the sound of women Alto voices speak unseen

Do geese that migrate speak like women?Can laughing women fly?Flying geese let go by winterSwiftly rowing through the sky


150


A VISION

How strange! I saw the planet from aboveClear and bright and cloudlessAzure sea, transparent atmosphereThe land, its shapes, and cities too

Then disturbance on a coast I will not nameNow the memory has fadedThen a flight of fighter planesSwooping, dipping like a flight of birdsAnd finally a little bird itselfFluttering amongst the squadron –The little bird descended toward the Earth

I swept around the world’s rim slowlyFrom high above, as if in orbit,Eyes without a body I could sense,But then could recognize no more—Interference by the planes shut off my vision

I think those aircraft were not earthlyAnd the future is forbiddenYet, there will occur a nearer timeWhen what has come to be Will be no further hidden


151


SERÁ LO MISMOHomage to Francisco Goya y Lucientes

Lift them by the arms and legsAfter all it’s only luggage,Half-spoiled meat, dressed up ragsGut-filled, flaccid belly baggage

You can’t just leave them lying there,The bodies swell and give off gasUntil the stomach starts to tear—Passer-by, pitch in or pass

Weeping? Is he one of yours?Tomorrow someone else will die—Here’s a brother death exploresWith fingers made of maggot flies

Why? Who cares? The fighting’s doneWith rubbish left by sloppy war,It only matters now who’s won—You’re strong, and what are shoulders for?

Listen, many years agoAnother war destroyed this cityWith even many more to showOf carcasses—and more’s the pity


http://search.famsf.org:8080/view.shtml?record=15102&=list&=1&=&=And

152


ARTISAN

Concussions in the cold beech forestWoodpeckers, scarlet crestsFlash against the sides of straight gray columns

The impact is a hollow blowHard wood hammered, tempered soThat living fiber thrums

The tool is only flesh and featherMuscle, bone and blood together,Buoyancy that’s braced against the bole

Supple-strong, a shank of steel,Spine a flexing rigid keelThat batters in and carves a hole

Three hundred grams perhaps, the drillCan see a human climb the hill,Claw around a grey trunk and be still

By day and night Thy will be doneTo hammer light and raise the sunAnd make us all Thy creatures, one by one


153


THE BALLAD OF COUNT ARNALDOS(based on an old Spanish ballad)

On a summer’s day, upon a headland highYoung courageous Count Arnaldos happened, riding by,To see a noble galleon beneath him in the bay,Her sail of silk was taut aloft, and yet the galleon stayed

And on her deck a sailor, his smock of woven silkSkin of golden parchment, hair as white as milkSang a bright enchantment, ballad of the seasAnd all his incantations hypnotized and pleased

Charmed the Count Arnaldos, which made him pull the reins,Manifold the melodies, ornament and plain,All of them as memories of something heard beforeLike echoes of a rolling surf breaking on a shore

Echoes of a summer wind plangent in a meadowWinter gales above the hills, cavernous and hollowDreams of songs forgotten in shadows of the dawnLullabies of babyhood, belovèd still but gone

And as the sailor chanted, the pitching sea aroundBegan to mount beside the ship and form into a crownAnd every ranging ocean bird circled round this hillOf marvelous enchanted sea submissive to his will

And as the sailor chanted, the dolphins rose and spreadTheir flanks of bright electrum and shook their bullish headsAnd whales that slapped their brawny flukes exposed their sides to him,He sang the birds that scout the seas, and everything that swims

Westward came the sweetest scents, as if at his command,Rose and blooming lavender, perfumes of the landSo that the Count Arnaldos loved but could not seeThe country of the far away, the song of what could be

Come teach me, called Arnaldos, the melody you singAnd I will bring you treasure, a phoenix on the wing,A casket made of glass and gold, within a diamond crown,A hawk with golden talons, a splendid hunting hound

154


Teach me what you sing, he called, and there will be reward,This horse I ride, my cape of gold, my dagger and my sword,Teach me what you sing, he cried, and there will be reward –No, the sailor said to him, first you must come aboard

You must come aboard, young man, sail this ship with me,Although I seem a common man, not of nobility,Although I am a sailor I sing of paradiseAnd none may learn these melodies unless they pay the price

You may not learn to sing with me unless you board and sailAcross the sea of oceans, to find what never fails,Across the rolling oceans until your hair turns whiteAnd that will be just long enough to reach the end of night


155


A MYSTERY

There is a crimson locket in which clandestine hideThe rolling hills of heaven, immutable insideMeadows ever-growing, abundant as the daysBeside the warm and virgin rivers of always

There is a land of hillsides ever green and sweetNothing can come near them except by joy complete,No lock and key defend them, and yet no grace may seeWithin the crimson locket except humility

The locket may enclose them, but weakness is the steel,Nothing can enfold them, their plentitude is real,No one can enjoy them except they can forgoThe passion to possess them, but let the secret go

Then without compulsion, or any lock and keyOpen is the locket for anyone to seeOpen is the locket, the likenesses inside:The Father, and the Spirit, the Mother and the Bride


156


ADORATION

I fell before you, secret OneGod’s anointed, only Son,Invisible inside your home,A tabernacle, windows none

Doors divided, then a cellUnseen and yet I knew you wellFrom all you have devised and done –God’s anointed, only Son

A riddle set you, gave to meHow to adore and yet not see,And I in turn gave back to YouUnseen my soul to heal, renew

Exchanged we then my soul confessedFor bounty which is limitless,Unspoken treaty signed and doneBy sacrifice, God’s only Son

Here I lost and could not holdMy glimpse of you, as if my soulHad lost the will by which to seeYour sweet invisibility

And yet in love you still supplyWhat none can grasp by thought or eye,Gracious have devised and done –The love of you, God’s only Son


157


FIND THE FOOL

There are no fools in paradise, since being thereProves canny innocence entirely angelic—They round the quadrilateral and draw the circle squareWithout a sharpened edge, or geometric

Then, if none of them are there, all the fools are hereProving sly malevolence completely idiotic—Even if God makes a road they can’t walk on it straightAnd though arriving early, wickedness comes late


158


THE VOWFor G. C.

A friend takes up a vow of silenceSix months from the first to last—Even Christ upon the crossPermitted seven prayers to pass

God the Father giving light,Omnipotent was never terse,When He split the day and nightHe uttered forth a universe

All that He created speaks:The monosyllables of seas’Troughs and ivory-curling peaks;The whining wind-tormented trees

Amphibians, the ice that groans,Magma hissing from the ground,Thunder from volcanic cones,Bats their ultrasonic sounds

Everything that is converses,Metrical the seasons plead,Rhythmically recite their verses:Dueling sonnets of the seeds

Why an oath, refrain from speech?What’s the reason for the vow?What can silence ever teach?Not to speak, but listen, now

Pavel ChichikovDecember 1, 2004

159


ANTI-HEAVEN

Nothing living to give birthLong trains run around the EarthCars that carry only dustNothing steers or guides but lustTo close the circuit of the deadPlus and minus, lead to leadFriction of the metal squealsThe intercourse of tracks and wheelsCargo of an unrefinedOre that nothing live has minedEyes unneeded, it has noneUnknowing of the moon or sunLife has tired and desistsThe paradise of atheists


160


IMAGES

Fog in the forest, struck to the heart,Where are the deer the hill walkers start?Now I will give you a secret revealedNothing is left in the wood and the field

Free the donation, freely withdrawnKit and the cub, stag and the fawnNow in the hollows the anarchic mistAll that he held in the cup of his fist

Vapor of daylight released from his handThick as a cloud in the folds of the landNothing, he takes them, now as beforeAll of the trees are cracked to the core

Season by season the year falls awayA moment and then comes the end of the dayBack to the chaos and formless it ridesOver the sea where the images hide


161


CELESTIAL MECHANICS

There is no crowd around you pressing hereExcept for someone watching from afar,A human planet orbiting from thereAround the yellow splendor of a star

A soul to serve you, and the pews are dim,The fonts behind them still as any pool—I see a solar system in this gloom,A wheeling stillness, paradox’s rule

And now, unlike a planet, I approach,No penalty of burning skin away—O splendid sun that sees without reproach,That shadowless reveals and lets me stay

And like a well of gravity you drawMe closer in, I will it, you allowFree choosing of the orbit of your will,Freely falling round you, kneeling now

And then as still as any field I flowBecause you can induce unease and peace,And draw me into unity I knewBefore there was affliction to release


162


SPEECHLESS

How do they live in the autumn rain,Speechless beasts who feel such pain?Shivering droplets, haunches, backs,It falls straight on, there is no leeIn the coverts, beside the trees—The patient deer, the sky in their tracksHow do they live in the autumn rain?

They live as they must, as much as weIn the shivering rain of mortality,The cold descends and soaks the blood—All in the streaming rain must standHere in the roofless autumn woodSpeechless woman and speechless manAs mortal as deer, as much as they


163


COLD RAIN

I teach you a lesson taught by cold rainA word falling downward for every dropBeneath and above you words are the sameLesson by lesson until the rain stops

Who is the leader, what is his name?There is no leadership, all are the same—Who is the follower, who are his friends?Find me the first one, the others then

Forming and falling until we’re no more,No greater, no lesser, no outer, no core,No one can tell us one from another,Who is the earlier, who is the later

Held by a tension, released by a fall,The frame of each one a molecular wall,One destination and all are released—Earth to the river to Ocean to peace

Who is to judge them? No one but heWho gathers them all, and lets them go free


164


AMAZON

Machine destroyed by tropical humidity,Error, error may the signal read—Cameras can’t be used without their eyes,Buttressed ceiba grow without its seeds

Error’s rot by ever-present summer,Hummingbirds sew mist between the leaves,Slip their curving bills to sip their nectar—Between the sleeping trees lianas weave

Nothing human works here, dampness shudders,Nothing mates with nothing of its kind,Metal rusts and nothing is discovered—Spiders cast their hindering thick lines

I think the eyes of travelers drift downTo where the arapaima fin and sipThe gently sinking silver of the humanEye, the fretting tissue of the lip

When a snatch of hummingbird they wish,They coil tremendous bodies till they leap—Those verdigris deliberate great fish,Dissembling by their lethargy to sleep


165


FUGITIVE

Candle path to where his body lay,Crypt and shadow, tabernacle, way,Citadel and chalice, shepherds’ cabin,Angels’ ark and mystery of heaven

Golden house, repository, chestDouble doors, the key to all the blessed;Fugitive I thought, without a traceThe house where he reveals his precious face

Children took their shelter in his thicket:Lucy, Anne, Elizabeth and Bridget,Rose of dusk, mosaic of the wall,Michael of the stillness over all

Hedge of ruby, sapphire the shield,Just as were the stars above a field,Shepherds freely entered and went out,Willingness the sign of the devout


166


HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS EVE

O sun of truth, rise upon the EarthRise upon your darkened land, o LordRaise the stubborn curtain of the nightThe morning is most beautiful o God

Your people wait, your people yearned of old,The dawn is hushed while you have yet to seeBelovèd, with your eye of purest goldHow desolate without your light are we

Come then, sun of truth, raise up your faceFather, sun of purity, your grace


167


CHRIST ON FOOT

A blue-hooded man with a curve-headed stick,Face out of shape, crust on his lips,Eye-lids collapsing, eyes full of rheum,Thin in his jacket, he staggers and turns

Through the cold wind to the steep hill’s rimNarrow and fragile, a pack on his shoulders—Rubble to falter on, day turning colder,Tones in the beech wood’s columns are deep

Has he no money, where is he going,This skeletal, weakened and sickly Christ?Has he no shelter, has he no home?His jacket is thin and the wind is strong

Has he no walls, a sick man alone?Why be afraid of him, cripple on foot?Will he be warm, will he go hungry?Christ is alone, and Christ is lonely


168


ROCK-A-BYE

The mother kneads the child to being,Unformed then, she names by kneading,Otherwise the child is hollow,Flesh and blood and empty soul

Like puppies polished with the tongueChildren hear their being sungWith lullaby and breath and kiss,Or else a muteness of distress

Is there then some prophecyLike wind to shake the apple tree?O yes there will be fruit but willThere be a wind to rock it still?


169


WORLD WITHOUT A NAME

At dusk as we stood facing the deep valleyOur small dog growled low and spun around,So we did spin around and fleeting seeA yearling black bear running past to ground

Phantasm soft as bears can move,No sound at all, a blur, a rank musk smellWith which the other beasts at dusk may proveThe bear beyond the shadows they fear well

And later looking back along a trailTwo silhouettes at distance still and stiff—A bobcat and a housecat, then a wailOf recognition—delicately sniff

For they will meet no longer to devourWhen all the wild encounter all the tame,Beasts will intermingle in that hourWhen we have left the world without a name

The lion lie complacent with the lambIsaiah’s prophecy omitting man


170


SHEPHERDS

Although their later ignorance will hurt themLet the shepherds sing and seraphimChanticleer the living stars and brighter,They who know forever do not dim

Spread the deepest straw upon the ground,Woven be the sunlight of His bedding,Burning of the candles be His crown,Eternity and time must have their wedding

Happiness and praise is to adore HimPraise on praise, the shepherds will confess –Kneel upon the straw and feast upon Him,Helpless as the love of wordlessness

Serenade with instruments of gold,The serpent in the veins of earth and stone,But all the kings astonished will grow old—Christ will be the shepherd of His own


171


IT HAS ITS HOUR

I saw a lady walking in a summer meadowIvory white the flowers that she stopped to see,Grew in their green footing, but no timely shadowEither on the white or green touched tenderly

Show to us your sacrifice, and where is he,The one you cradled softly in your maiden arms,Show the one you nestled to you tenderly—Where is he who came to such a wretched harm?

My son was here, she told me, but has gone away,Everyone may see him if they have the sight,He has dressed his body in the light of dayDressed his precious body in the dark of night

Dressed his gentle body in a winding fireBrighter than a burning star that does not blind,Light of light his covering and not entire,Spirit, flesh and love he is, as you may find

Spirit, flesh and love he is, as in this flowerAll who see it growing now will be consoled,Though it may eternal be it has its hour,Flourishing eternally and never old

Then she knelt and took it in her gentle hand,Where it grew another grew to bloom and stand


172


GUIDE

A shadow on a screen is in your belly—Silhouette, what does the shadow mean?It means that you are passing through a valley,It means a growing mass is on a screen

Candle be extinguished, flesh and shadow,No more will the living wax ignite,All consumed the candle you have borrowed,Melt and burn away o flame of night

The shadow on the screen is of your flame,Interposed the negative of deathComes between your eye and what I am—Light from light is what I meet you with

I am the guide conveying you to me,Goal and guide and candle light you see


173


THE PRESENTATION

Little brown paper cones, small packagesHeld horizontal on the ends of twigs,Presents tightly wrapped by Christmas Day—Open them in April – they are beech leaves

I tell you they are yours, and they are youWhen on the celebration of your life in HimThe fingers of the Lord unrollThe light green leaves within them of your soul


174


CANDLES

Gray December is and dampCold invades the body’s rooms:Skin and fingers, face and scalpForetelling of the damp of tombs

To the oratory, prayTo Mary, mother of the lost,Candle rows our love conveyAnd warm the fingers of their frost

Burning prayer ascends in flameTo warm the sepulcher of cold,Burning candles in her nameWarm the hands and light the soul


175


EMPTY NEST

A nest of wasps, its womb revealed,Gray paper tombs hexagonaled,Chambers surgeoned up to showEggs unplugged that will not grow

Gray paper city that once hewedTo maple branches, stem unglued,Dim lantern radiating grayEmptiness this winter day

So will the Earth, its chambers stripped,Every roof from dwelling ripped,Reveal vacuity to space:Belovèd green and azure place

And that which buzzed and fed its brood,Quarreled where its cities stood,Give up its nesting and its tribesTo other species, other lives

Unless the promises of ChristInclude unearned salvation twice


176


THE BAND

The Blessed Virgin sent me The little golden bellWith which I’m meant to serve her In heaven’s holy ground—It makes so small a soundThe little golden bellBut then among the fireOf heaven’s band and choirIt’s all I could desire


177


COLONY

The beehive faces southSo even on this late December dayThey come out for their cleansing flights,Inspect the milkweed in the yellow field

They crowd the wooden ledges and the narrow slitsAnd as they do five whitetail deer bend throughThe shadow wire of the cold quiescent trees,Stop and watch the opening in the light

Shadows of the berry canes lean over,Quiver on the yellow straw of summer grasses,December thaw melts edges in the frozen pond,The gingko’s stippled bark seems lit within

Should we stop here? How wonderful this is,Light organized by orders into life –Black gold their sturdy bodies as they turn and mingleIn the warm December sun, try out their wings

Should we stop here? Try out your wingsReturn, and try again—I hearThe rushing of your wings, the voiceThat you have stirred by moving in the sun


178


TO ALE

Lord, I am smashed with an amber of ale—Is love of creation five per cent ethanol,Grinning at night at the end of December?Diurnal are we, so the light from withinMust illumine enough when daylight is thinAnd faces in passing look meager and pale—Give us the patience enough to rememberThe glorious rising that follows our LentOf winters so gladness and joy may ferment,Dregs be forgotten and wonders prevail.Meanwhile give thanks for the mercy of aleThat loosens the grip of the frost on the soul.Now out of rhyme are the day and the nightBut let the day lengthen and all be delight


179


IF THESE THINGS FALL…

Time, and that which is not timeRun side by side, All at onceThrough involuted, convoluted surfaces

Future looks through pastTransparencies of when,The past through future eyesAstonishes surprise

A Great Horned Owl’s breath,Winds across a bottle’s mouth,Moans in cyan twilight—And if I live forever

Does the owl live there tooInside an April forest?And does the heronStand in running water?

What is my memoryIf not my immortality?Though these things fallKnow once, know all


180


HYMN TO THE SAVIOR

I go alone, who else can go,Who will come with me to the shadows?One who is both here and there,Who is absolved and yet will share

Now as the Earth itself dissolvesAnd all the solids of the worldsThat lie above, below, beyondDisintegrate, and all compounds

Within my body and withoutSoften to a shadow’s doubt,He is the one who will cohereAnd go with me when I go there

Against all acids he is proof,Against all solvents, even death,Omnipotent yet not aloofWho took our flesh, who took our breath

Pavel ChichikovJanuary 2, 2005

181


ANGELS

The beehive is the white Church of a meadowOn the southward facing angle of a hill,White pine-wood the house, and at the front a porticoWhere servants of a mystery expose their wings

All the acolytes of honey rise toward noon,Translucent are their wings, the sun can sketchThe shadows of the veins upon the white wood,And those who fly can hover and can fetch

Light from light, the sun transformed to honeyIn many tabernacles is reserved, six-sidedAre the waxen molds, ciboria to suck,And all are given nourishment, divided

Life and ritual, symbol and deliverance are oneFor these unfallen angels, who must fall


182


OUT OF JORDAN…

Out of Jordan, John the seerWith his hand a palmful bails,Shawls of water cold and clearCover God with shining veils

A dove descending John can see,(The swiftest in protracted flight)Covers like a canopyThe crown of God with wings of light

Then a message on its wingsFrom valleys to the highest hillsOf Galilee a message brings:Humility is what God wills

Common water, common breadCommon wine his sacramentsTo raise the living and the dead,Ritual and true events

Real as grain, as real as vinesReal as rivers flowing fast,A baptism of Christ’s design,Perishing forever lasts


183


TRISAGIONFor Fr. Paschal Morlino, O.S.B

Seraphim on either side the altar,Lean, yet toward the vertical, no weightFor they are free of fields of force forever,Brilliant with immensities of light

Invisible as mirrors of the sun,Seraphim, in radiance they guardThe naming of ever-living One:Holy, holy, holy are their words

Let every consecration be the sameIn every world, pluralities of spaces,The infinite is entering His name,The love of Christ in these expectant faces

From every world, and every time they comeThe living of the light who live with Him


184


THE HILL

My friends receive their sentences By bullet or by surgeon’s knife,Minor seem the distancesTo see the hill where ends a life

Not the place where flesh lifts upThe tablet stone which runs with blood;Between the sacred and corruptIs further than a foot can tread

The living ones, the fearful sit,Silent see and silent fear,Now the surgeon’s knife has slitNow the grams of lead can tear

Now we know what we have seenTo stay as close as may our terror,For Christ has thrust himself betweenOurselves and death to be forever

And if He may who made the hillAnd skull and flesh, so us He will


185


WINTER MEADOW

I see my friend inside a yellow field,Still beside a door with iron jambs,Uprights iron and the lintel, low threshold,Another world beyond the door extends

No one sees beyond the aperture—Winter lying snowless at the door—Silently I stand apart from herNot knowing if she sees me there with her

Brambles—dry and scarlet canes—and Queen Anne’s lace,Rye in yellow swathes, unruly herbal,Low curved shadows covering her face—Within this field the sun will never fall

There is no structure visible to knowNo road or path beyond this winter meadow—No one can see another field, beholdAnother rising from a low threshold

Until she finds a summons at her feetA single blade of yellow summer wheat


186


RABBLE

Crows are hurling diatribesAgainst a red tailed hawk enthronedWhere two high poplar branches meet—Many crows, a hawk alone

Royal breast of silken vairGleaming while they dare its eye,Russet tail hung down in air—Crows are raucous but they lie

Like another who was hangedHigh above the crowd on wood—“Let the foxes be defanged,Cap the hawk a thorny hood”

Pitiful the mob that swingsAround the noble buteoThat might unfold its strapping wingsAnd buffet down the rag of crows


187


THE SIGNS

The coldest day of winterWind comes from the sun,The yellow masked betrayerIs cold instead of warm

Every bird is frozenAnd will not leave its tree,The sun commits a treasonAnd will not warm the sea

Windows have ascendedBetween the sun and us,Law has been upendedA minus come from plus

One who made the forestsThe seasons and the mind,Can also be a chemistAnd alternate the signs


188


SOMEONE MADE A GARDEN…

Someone made a garden, blue and white and greenShade beneath the forest, sunlight on the plainSmall and round and warm enough, out of time agoAround a star of promises, other stars like snow,Out of dust He made it, and gathered it in spaceAnd those are His belovèd who praise Him to His face


189


GRAIN OF SAND

The creek has not yet frozenBut shaven winter vinesNaked since OctoberTangle their designs

Arching wooden bridges Slippery with snowJump between the edgesThe running stream below

Freezing water crystalsAround a grain of sand,Makes a river metalA running river stand

I saw a bird of winterFlutter on a perch,Snow descending gathersAn ivory winter church

Everything that’s neededExcept a sacrifice,And then will be completedSolemnities of ice


190


WHEN ONE OF US HAS DIED…

She doesn’t want to dieBut must accept her fateIt is our every fateHere on this Earth to die

If we were only insectsThose little gaudy beastsWe would be living dustTo fertilize and cease

But we are little EarthsContained and numerousIn all our separate thoughtsIn every thought a birth

When one of us has diedIt is as if God died


191


VOLES

A movement in a little grove,The meager snow mere ashes in a meadow,A veil of shriveled leavesA shrouded figureStirring, settling on a branch

The winter sun is strong and cold,The little river quickly flows,I have disturbed a dreamerWaiting for the azure shadowsOf the night’s full moon

The cold tonight will burnAnd all around the ashes of the snowThe voles will run until the goblin comesThose hungry little foolsWho should be underground in winter moonlight

For something in the grove has moved,Disturbed, and settled down


192


THE YALOKOM VALLEY

A raven soared above the YalakomCroaking, scanning; sharp shrewd eyes Alight behind the sable beak,Untouchable, immaculately black

It rasped and coughed—I was not carrion—And so passed weightless overhead,Weightless, with a snowy cirque behind it,With shining patient eyes

Down the snowy valley to the Quaker’s ranchWhere cougars made an easy kill last night,A ewe not finished yet, to feedOn what they left, the raven’s present need

Cold in the valley, the cold pours down,Not pitiless, for pity needs a face,And nowhere do I see God’s only Son—Creation needs some other kind of grace


193


FOUR DEER

This light snow engraving over all,Enlacing limbs of trees, the winter hills,Obdurate, recalcitrant, will flowAnd only that which loves is God’s true will

Today four deer were driven from a grove,So in this world true love will not resistAn evil, yet a refuge it will proveWhen Lucifer pursues the Eucharist


194


AN ACCIDENT

What joy! Out of the young pine tree,Shaken by our footsteps,Near where the doe lay down And left a melted oval on the groundCome small excited sparrows,A cardinal full-fledged with scarletLike an arrowAnd blue-grey juncos rapidly

Where she lay down last night we seeWoven needles colored bronzeAnd where the birds have flown awayThe sapling innocently silent:“No birds are here with me”—And that pressed down lozengeA random accidentWhere snow has fallen carelessly


195


THE FOURTH STATION

Fourth, the weary stationWhere carrying the crossHe meets the Blessed VirginIn sorrow for His loss

The world is hard and heavyMy weary shoulders bleedBut I must lift and carryThe mass of Adam’s deed

Most of men who sufferTake vengeance on another,So I must die, my mother,The crop of Cain to gather

Mary gazed at MaryThere a woman stood A memory of Mary,The Passion carved of wood

A living Mary standingTo see the Savior stopConsole the Blessed VirginAnd gather in that crop


196


MATTHEW 2: 12

Heed the warning in the dream,Shun the king, do not returnMessengers need not explain,Darkness in the darkness burns

Leave and do not turn your heads,Straight ahead the safest road,Snakes have poison in their heads,Deadly are the eyes of Herod

Home is where the sun has risen,Follow morning till the end,Westward is the palace prison,Friendly are the words of friends

They had seen the light of heavenShining on the gold of straw,Brought the gifts the world had given,Took with them the gold they saw

Something precious, something rare,Kept it from the grasp of kings,Wise enough for them to share,Safe enough to keep on living


197


THE BOTTOM

Two dabbling ducks, one brown, one drab—One yellow-billed, a tiny drake,A duck that keeps her leeway with her webs—Up-end and sieve beneath the surface of the lake

Much like the ribbing of a folding fan,The black toes of the white egretSpread out to make the insubstantial greenOut-spreading floating water weed a net

If I could reach the bottom, catchThe blinded souls that burrow there,I would like fishing angels then attachMy light to them and bring them up for air

Pavel ChichikovFebruary 3, 2005

198


COLD SEA

Recent ones descend through darkened water,Sightless to the air their stiffened faces,Framing of the face the mass displaces,Artifacts that scavengers dismember,

One by one familiar ones go down,Those beloved and those unloved descendTo be the sightless ocean of the end—Human love by lovelessness unknown

Come to be, then once again be never?In and out of time they come aliveOr never would their wakefulness surviveThe massive cold displacement of forever


199


CLAY

We are not lost, not lost yet,As long as someone praysLord Christ will not leave us

Those who pray, however weakCan pull the rest along behind them,Even from the edges of the world

Call upon the guideWho made us out of chaos,Stubborn heavy clay of living souls


200


A STRAW

A wicked tooth a pain in Earth’s cold head,It wobbles as she feels it with her tongue,So then with thumb of mountains and a pinchShe pulls it from the socket where it stung

Pulls her cap of glaciers down again,Around her waist a green and yellow bandOf forests, deserts, as the yellow sunScintillates on oceans and on land

Does she miss it? Does the Earth regretThe emptiness she senses in her jaw?So many left that one she will forgetAs would the plains of Africa a straw


201


A VISION

A vision, a visionA woman less than humanMother of the hideousSorrowful and desolate Hopeless Shameful things—Her fertile womb exposed,Terrible and bloodyEmpty cavityWhose edges thin and flabbyLoose and white and bloodyShe holds together with her hands

What is this parody?Inhuman travesty?What has given birthWhat from it goes forthTo putrefy the Earth?Prolific demonTapering and thin,Her pseudo-form contractsInto a uterusWith arms and legs

Mother of all goodVirgin and God bearerYou who stand in grace upon the crescent moon,Angels of the altarsWitnesses, protectorsPraisers of the light,Saints who glorifyWithin God’s sight,Martyrs and confessorsEnduring Christ proclaimersDefend us from all harm

Demons who destroy Their parodies employTo fill a barren EarthWith evil’s afterbirth


202


SPRING MIGRATION

Tufts of hair torn out from stag or doeAnd at the root of one a viscid clot;Flies make helices above a dark spot on the ground—February, mild and meek of thaw

Something desperate struggled here, escapedAnd now the dogs lift up their baited snouts,Sniff and quiver on their rippling haunches—Let them off their leads and they will leap

Quarter all the hills, the slopes and gullies,Searching every blood scent on the air;While overhead a skein of wings departingSlips above these savageries and follies

Ripples in a pattern, growing faintAbove the desperate struggles of the saints


203


THE COMMONS

Talons of the owl gripThe moon-delighted meadow vole,A vixen with a cache of kitsSnaps a deer mouse from a hole

Left behind pathetic spoor:Ashen pellets on the trail,Cylinders of hair and bone,Twisted autumn grasses, pale

How astonishing to seeMolecules that squeak and run,Marvels of economyTurned to ashen-colored dung

I will not believe it soThat all the living blown to grassNever to the commons goWhere all the winds of death re-pass


204


BADLANDS

Two old LakotasSitting on sofasAt the edge of the BadlandsStaring at screens

One toward the eastOne toward the westTV, they sayBut the programs come from the sky

The plateau is highThe dust grey-beigeOut of the distanceComes a blue bus

Folks from the coastDescend from their seats:What is this place?The spirit world

You’ve come through the BadlandsHere you can restBefore you go onTo the mountainous blue

Here you can restDrink from the skyYour food is the frost—The Badlands are dry

And there was the deaconAdjusting the beaconAttracting the soulsWho were lost, to their goal


205


METAMORPHIC NIGHTS

Sepulcher of waspsGrey against a cloud,Cylinder that claspsSleepers in a shroud

Citadel of paper,Pupae in their skins,Dead against the weather,February winds

Nothing of the daylightPenetrates the walls,Nothing of the starlightInfiltrates the stalls

Each within a roomChanging out of sight,Hexagonal tombs,Metamorphic nights

Quickened by an urge,Nothing to atone,Soon they will emerge,Roll aside their stone


206


THE BAKER

Something broke the earthRupturing the stone,Tore aside the columnsLet the branch flow on

Strata leaning upward Perfect tilted stacks, Columns not yet worn, Smooth and wetted black

Each a deck of cardsFused-together sand,Geometric planesLifting from the land

Further down a fordCobbles in a rampCross the shallow creekWhere the horses stamped

Where the heavy wagons Working in a trainCenturies agoHauled away the grain

Now a single lifetimeLooking at the stream,Who will be the millerGrinding up this dream?

Who will grind the flour,Who will bake the bread?Who will be the bakerWho raises up the dead?


207


THE COFFIN

The priests wear port-wine vestmentsAnd the old ones, with pink facesLook like ancient flowers

Someone has died, or I might sayA body died—but what becomes the rest?She is not flesh

Every atom in her body changesYet there is a pattern not at restAnd it remains

Preach no vanity, no understanding—Even vanity is not our judgment—Her coffin is a monolith

The coffin is the tower and the bellsThe sanctuary and the vigil light, the roseThat twines the tabernacle

The vestments and the flowers tooAnd all the priests themselves will buried beBut not the coffin

There is only one who lifts the coffin upWho carries it away, whoBuries it


208


FIRST STATIONJESUS IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH

A raging mob? I’d rather face the beasts—At least a lion killer has a sword;But this is rabble maddened by the priests,Held at bay by nothing but my word

Stink of breath, of rage, of something worse,A shifting of the atmosphere, a stormOf jealousy, a diabolic curse:Malevolence, the stinging of the swarm

And I’m the center of it, prefect, judgeAnd here’s a perfect innocence I see—One of us is sitting in a cage,But who’s the prisoner, this man or me?

Now a tide of hatred like a wave—Kill the Christ, they shout, Barabbas save


209


A SECOND MYSTERY

To go truth-naked thereNo flesh for sureNor even bone to build a lie,To see within one’s own thin soulA body forming to containLove and joy or constant painOf rude and unrequited loveOr love forever glory-robed—The lie must dieBut truth will live,So they who whip and spit and scornThe naked Truth will be unborn


210


SECOND STATIONJESUS TAKES UP HIS CROSS

He grapples with the cross that murders Him,Beams of wood carved out of Adam’s tree;Innocence and mercy are His crimes,Love condemned, His peace a felony

Who can help Him lift it? Where’s the spineThat’s strong enough to carry every sin,Adam’s in the Garden until mine;Now the deadly adding up begins

Must I leave Him now? I am in fearThat standing close might draw me to His fate;Pity and compassion keep me near,Terror and foreboding hesitate

And while I contemplate my silent dreadHe takes the cross and bears it in my stead


211


THE ANSWER

The answer was a simple oneOne blue bird of blue and dunBlue of wing, belly brownBack and forth above the ground

Back and forth above the trailSmooth of feather, blue of tailI’m the messenger you calledAll is well – and all is all

North the wind, cold as wellI myself am what I tellCold and bright the winter sunOne blue bird of blue and dun


212


THIRD STATIONJESUS FALLS THE FIRST TIME

Did He fall alone, or me and you?There came a dimness in the sky, the dovesThe Temple keeps for sacrifices flewIn rapid desperate spiralings aboveThe tortured prophet of unceasing love

“Up and stand,” the Roman soldiers said.They pulled Him up and told Him “You’re a manWho’s got an urgent meeting with the dead—We’re here to get you there on time, so stand.”Their whips are reinforced with slugs of lead

I hope I never see the like againFor as the lashes fell I felt the woundsAs now I do as if they’d never mendThough they were His. And now I hear the soundOf strokes descending on my Lord and friend

But more than that, the Master in me lives—The wounds are mine, and mine through Him are His


213


FOURTH STATIONJESUS IS MET BY HIS BLESSED MOTHER

I call, although I call without a breath—Pain and breathlessness have overcomeMy voice—I cry and stumble after deathAlong a lonely way—I am alone

Come, my dearest Mother, see Me here,The people whom I love have cast Me down,Abandonment is worse than any fear—My wound is grief, my loneliness a wound

An angel at my side—no it is she—No seraphim could solace me as muchAs her unyielding love’s audacity—Her eyes as comforting as any touch

Angelic she, the presence heaven-sentTo mean that death is not abandonment


214


FIFTH STATIONSIMON OF CYRENE HELPS JESUS TO CARRY THE CROSS

A man who has no friends—he’s near collapse—His back is almost broken—side by sideI see a shadow pass across His face—Why kill a man before he’s crucified?

And never, think I, were such sorrows borneBy any one so passionate and fine—His brow and shoulders hideously torn—Every wound and punishment is mine

Mine as well as His, so when I takeThe beam that He should carry for my ownI bear it though my loving heart may break—He will not go to Golgotha alone

His penalties are mine, to know and suffer—I take the cross for Jesus Christ my brother


215


SIXTH STATIONVERONICA WIPES THE FACE OF JESUS

Where is God? I see this wounded OneWho struggles with such pitiful afflictionThat pity makes me comfort Him, atoneBy giving love, though other hearts feel none

Do others though see something else in Him,A glorious repose beyond His pain,Serenity of purpose which has wonA world beyond His agony and shame?

I offer up my veil to wipe Him cleanOf infamy and squalor, blood and sweat,And find in Him a greater love returned,Infinities of love beyond regret

And later know the imprint of His loveOn veil and heart that nothing can remove


216


SEVENTH STATIONJESUS FALLS THE SECOND TIME

He falls a second time, as if the earthWere reaching for His flesh, as if the darkWere flowing from the tomb to clutch his heart—How close is death when evil does its work

Listen then, a hush falls on the crowdThey wait to see Him rise again, or fail,The innocent, the great, the low, the proud—The self-important laugh, the others wail

And sigh, for then he grasps the cruel beamOn which He is to die, and as a staffHe uses it to struggle up, then on Toward Golgotha—and who would dare to laugh?

As by the cross He would rise up and goI would by death the cure of dying know


217


EIGHTH STATIONJESUS PITIES THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM

The men are fearful but the women mournThe brutal punishment of gentle Christ;They strike their breasts to see Him so deformed,Tear their clothes, anoint their heads with dust

Christ does not complain or even groan –Foreseeing what will come He pities them;Sufferings and tortures of their ownWill also overwhelm Jerusalem

Walls of gold, the towers of the Lord,The Temple and the precincts of the priestsWill be trespassed and taken by the sword,And all the holy rituals will cease

They mourn the desolation yet to comeInvisible to them, but not to Him


218


FIELD OF FIRE

Fort DeRussy’s buried under summers,The ramparts and the ditches shoveled thenIn ’61, abandoned by the bummers,And gone the hundred-pounder Parrott gun

The field of fire’s over grown with trees,Third or second growth of pine and oakWhere snipers training steadied on their knees,And first lieutenants practiced saber strokes

Over east the valley of Rock CreekDown a steep decline that can’t be flanked,And over east the line of Seventh StreetWhere Jubal Early’s raiders drew a blank

A hundred forty summers pass and fourThe ramparts are the rounder for the rain,A generation fights another warAnd then a field of fire grows again


219


NINTH STATIONJESUS FALLS THE THIRD TIME

He falls and falls again and now the last Exhaustion overcomes His human will—As if within a cave He hears the humOf something bee-like singing in His lungs;Fluid trapped inside His ventriclesDrums against the cavern of His chest

Who would lift these instruments of torture,Embrace these blocks of wood?—for it is HeWho chose His cruel tormentors, no other:The mockery of priest and PhariseeThe wretched weeping of the helpless women,Betrayal and deceit, the hush of heaven

And yet He knew His destiny full well:To challenge sin, the enmity of hell

Pavel ChichikovFebruary 2008

220


MEMORIAL

A wand of poplar broken in a flurry,A little palm of green in February,Never will the fingers in it grow,Now it will be covered in late snow

All who have been broken from a limbGrow to green futility and dim,Twig is to the tree is to the groundFastened to the pole it spins around

Who can take a wand and with it tapWinter branches, drawing out the sap?Adam could before there was a fallAnd wands of wood are his memorial


221


TENTH STATIONJESUS IS STRIPPED OF HIS GARMENTS

Here’s a world of cruelty and steel—Where else could the innocent be strippedAnd not arouse a terror of the angels—In what prison is their justice kept?

Come and help Him Michael, Gabriel,The cross is seated in the earth, the nailsWere sharpened in the factories of hell,Their justice is corruption and blackmail

Less gall for Him, he needn’t drink the cup,Bitterness is theirs but not His own—He offers innocence to the corrupt,Garments of a single piece unsewn

While the dice are cast to satisfySome petty greed, the Christ prepares to die


222


ELEVENTH STATIONJESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS

Above the place of skulls a silence hangsAs if duration’s forwardness had failed,Our breath had stopped—the morning shadows holdTheir lengths against the ground, the sun grows oldAnd senile—let the violence unfold,Lift up the brutal hammer and the nailsSo each can pierce His innocence like fangs

You and I have always seen this hillThat once and always was, is now, will be—Behold, a second exodus begins,On Golgotha the God of Moses winsUs all from darkness and its sins,From Egypts of the soul, from slavery—We are His refugees, Redemption’s Israel


223


TRACKS

Hoof prints in the shallow snow,Dainty deer not long ago,Mine as well beside them goPlantigrade, both heel and toe

Two are upright, theirs are four,All will melt by dusk, before,Time is falling, will restoreTracklessness forever more


224


TWELFTH STATIONJESUS DIES ON THE CROSS

Silence in the morning, day must break,God Himself be fastened to a stake;Who is worthy to be here, to seeChrist abandoned to a naked tree?Sorrow’s children, offspring of disgrace,Why should you be witness to His face?Turn away, the world has drawn its breathTo see the maker of it hanged to death—The heavy cross, those sterile balks of woodHold His sacrifice, the Lord’s manhood.And yet no man or woman turns awayWho stands upon the hill of death that day

They see the cross of human evil fill,Stems and twigs and leaves invisible,Nothing blossom on it yet it spreadsShade above the living and the dead,Barren tree, appalling tree of griefOn Golgotha grow fruit within the leaf.Pluck and eat all those who are His heirs—Each and all are freely given shares,Deathlessness the skin, the core, the meat,The flesh of life eternal that was wheat.Silence in the morning, do not turnBut see the Lord’s redemption none have earned


225


THIRTEENTH STATIONJESUS IS PLACED IN THE ARMS OF HIS BLESSED MOTHER

Have you seen the slaughtered lambs which swayFrom iron hooks outside the butchers’ stalls,How the flies on humid summer daysBlacken on their fluids, in their nostrils?

Carcasses – their blood runs down unblessed –How different is His corpus for His pain?Final breath a devil in the dust,Neither man nor animal remains

But those who loved Him past the fear of gravesRefuse to cede His purity to slaves,Or leave Him to be put away defiled –They take Him from the cross, sweet Mary’s Child

They will not let the Lamb of God be leftTo be abused, the brave and the bereftWill make the body sweet that they must bury,And always by His side His mother Mary

Linen cloths and spices keep Him pureA little while, though nothing will endure


226


FOURTEENTH STATION

Must I go with Him into the tomb?No dread as great as this can ever holdThe human heart so tightly in its fist

For every human soul it is the same—Is it for this that we were made, then soldAs slaves to entropy—believer, atheist?

What will, my precious Lord, become of meIf you, the son of the immortal OneCould not evade, escape mortality

Follow Me, He says, and I will showA mystery that only death can know

Pavel Chichikov

227


THE MEETING

This is not snow which covers everything,It is the future, blank and tracklessOn which I now begin to walk and disappear

No one sees from here where I have goneAnd I too leave behind those whom I knewUntil in future time we are rejoined

Can you see beyond the hill? I canA little way before the blankness stopsIn greater vanishings, so wait till I return

But even if you wander we shall meetAs if by chance, though nothingUncreates what God has made—all things

A ramp of tracklessness descends,Uphill runs a city street,And there I see you, we embrace, The future past, the present held in place


228


FOURTEENTH STATIONJESUS IS LAID IN THE TOMB

In that house is nothing but a slab,A limestone bed to last until decayHas spun the sour capsule of its web,Stripped His face and veiled His memory

Stone will be the door where He abides,Darkness be His kinsman and His guest,Oblivion a never-aging bride,Nothingness His never-ending quest

I see the few lamenting follow on—His love is like the radiance that drewThe magi to the town where He beganTo make the world of lamentation new

Lamenting they will house Him in a tombThat will be ours forever: Christ come soon


229


FIFTEENTH STATIONAFTERWARD

Afterward the weeping MagdaleneSees the stone that shuttered His remains,The lifeless eye of death, awake and open—Woman, tell the men He has been stolen

Tell His followers the limestone rockHas rolled away, His sepulcher’s unlocked—Then two rise up to find what had been sealed,To see the cold impossible revealed

They run, their hope before them, as if theyHad been the ones entombed, had seen bright dayIn keenest radiance cut through the stoneTo wake them from a black oblivion

They find the clothes of burial, not Him,The garments in the sepulcher so trimHe might have risen to His morning work—A fisherman, or carpenter, or clerk

The two depart; the woman in her frightLooks within—two sentinels of lightGuard the bed of death at head and feet“Woman, can you tell us why you weep?”

The woman turns to see the gardener,Or so she thinks, and begs Him for an answer:”“Where is my Master carried?” and He says:“Mary! It is I who was, who is”

Mary having lost Him has been found,Knows Him by His face and by His wounds,His gentleness, His friendship and His love,As He will find her soul beyond the grave


230


Wall of a hundred fifty towersSurround our souls with angels’ powers,Prayers their swords, hymns aroundThe battlements with joyful sounds

With what labor was it made?Faith and fervor unafraid—With what paving was it paved?Suffering with hope engraved

If the land outside belie,As desolate as it is dryThe city will be safe insideThe Psalms of David tall and wide

If the watchers should see clouds,Armies of the cruel and proud,Demons of the night and dayAnxieties to seize their prey

And if those regiments should march,A siege of envy overarchThe battlements, we will call onOur catapult of joyful sound

He will rise and make sortieOutside to set the captives free,Lead them through the open gatesTo charity away from hates

The towers fly the pennants ofUnending joy, unending love,A hundred fifty psalms are theseOf harmonies and melodies


231


WINDFALLS

Do you believe the buzzardWhich soars above our suburbMeans nothing?

Not great wings, agreedBut broad enough—It spreads its primaries

Smells, turns its little headThis carrion bird,Which looks well fed

Updrafts from the sloping roofsThe careful lawns—It floats—it snoops

Slowly, drifts and almost stallsBut gathers in the windAnd sees windfalls

Perfect of its kind—The bird’s wing-beautiful—Small head, small mind


232


YES

Those damned crocuses, says big March windI try to freeze them shutBut sun is strong, and they unclasp their yellow handsTheir lavender

I’ll blow them shut—noI’ll blow them shut—blow—no

Now those pink umbrellas on the maple treesI’ll keep them all rolled upBut sun is strong, they loosen up their winter gripTheir small green hands

I’ll make them shake and sway—noI’ll blow them all away—no

Ach, there’s nothing doing here—but snowIs harsh as glass, as sharp as shardsAs crystal pavement when I strum my harpAmong the winter branches

Will you stay that way? noThe sun will come to stay—yesAnd melt our crystal white away


233


THE ANNUNCIATION

There is the sound of breezes or a voice,A gust of roses or of perfumed wings,A web of light and shadow or a choice,Birdsong or a messenger who sings

Sun or shade until it comes to rest,Gently, almost weightless yet as tallAs pomegranates on the topmost branchBefore the ripest fruit begins to fall

O darling Mary, mother-virgin, sweet—Gabriel am I to serve the Lord,Envoy of the Blessed One who waitsUpon your free decision and your word

For there are greater wings than these I bearWhich overshadow every living thing—A Child will be to conquer all despairIf you consent to carry, bear a King

Let it be, though I am virginal,The garden be the image of my womb,The cradle of humility be royal,And all the harvest of His kingdom come


234


THE VISITATION

Wait with me, sweet Mary, dearest kin,You comfort with your kiss and your embrace,Come and share our miracles: our sons—Your destiny and mine are interlaced

Now they will be twinned and yet apart,God’s Messiah and His harbinger—Feel this baby thrill beneath my heart,Let us be one happiness together

Elizabeth my kin, we are at peace,God has blessed our carrying with joy,There is my own contentment in your face,Constancy that nothing can destroy

The promise of deliverance is kept,Prophecy delivered and confessed,For as the love you hold within you leaped,The Lord beneath my bosom also blessed


235


THE NATIVITY

The barn is cold and dark, let’s make it warm—Flame of olive, flame inside the lamp,Rise, you brush of burning olive, formThese walls and slanting beams, drive out the damp

Who’s inside to friendship us, an ox?A donkey too, and mourning doves, and swallows;Scurry in the straw, you clever mouse,Make some room for us, gray-suited fellow

Dearest, settle here, I’ll turn away—Dusk outside is frosty and I hearGolden singing in the eastern skyAs if the stars themselves had gathered near

I see my breath—be still a little while—Where should I find miracles enough?A place where yellow straw receives this ChildOf miracles, as if he were a calf

Hug the little baby from the cold,Ox and donkey breathe a summer wind,Doves and angels tell the shepherd’s foldThat Christ is born of she who never sinned


236


THE PRESENTATION

Just for now forget the infants’ slaughter,The flight to Egypt—bear in mind the starThat shone above the stable and the manger –Softly now. Remember where you are

David conquered here, the soldier-king—Solomon the wisest and the bestSacrificed and ruled from daylight’s risingTo Egypt’s sunset river in the west

Here the God of Jacob holds His mountain,His courts and columns bloody in the dawn,His sanctuary veiled behind a curtain,His ark of glory and His cherubim

Redeem the son of God, the second Adam,First-born of the living from the dead,His journey toward the sepulcher begun,His flesh not yet become the living bread

He will be a sign of contradictionA sword of sorrow keener than a lance,An offering of blood and of redemption—The turtledoves are ready now—advance!


237


THE FINDING OF THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

The Child has disappeared—Where has He gone?Now search the road behind us, searchMy husband Joseph hurry—find our Son—Go back, and while you do so I can watch—Perhaps He’s gone ahead and will return

Not there, not here, we must retrace our steps,The scroll rewind upon its stony spindle;Take the road that rises – we’ll go upTo see the mountain once again, the Temple,The journey’s wool untangle from the weft

Our only Child, our darling, heaven’s love,Treasure to be cherished – here’s the gate,Lambs and bullocks ready, many doves,The court where sages gather to debate—There He is—He questions and He proves

Where have you been, sweet treasure beyond cost?Within my Father’s house I am not lost.


238


THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN

They sleep as though in hiding from the dawn,And now to buy their wakening with this:By miseries of hell their heaven’s won,Tortures of the damned to purchase bliss

O dear Father, let me slip away,This duty is so hard, it hurts me so,My being strains in agony to pray,Sweat as cold as death begins to flow

Now your messenger—I sense him here—Comforts with the glory of a lightInvisible to those who live in fear—Your love is dawn; the dread of death is night

I see a lamp, my sleeping friends arise!Death has come with kisses and with lies


239


THE SCOURGING AT THE PILLAR

They swing their whips in circles, make them sing,Slaves of death who flog Creation’s KingCriminals who cover Him with gashes,Seven slugs entwined within the lashes:Jealousy and pride and greed and lust,The Son of God defiled by sons of dust,Sloth and gluttony—the sins of beastsRage against the Love that will not cease,Eternity with spittle on its faceHumility in agony, disgrace

You scourge your hope, eternal Glory’s Son,Your truth, your faith, your only champion—Without Him you are lost—and still you beatThe Lord of grace, the bleeding flesh you eat


240


THE CROWNING WITH THORNS

A purple rag as royal as any cloak,A crown of thorns more dignified than gold,A reed as regal as a staff of oak,A chasuble of sweat, a stole of blood

Do you see Him now? What do you see?An ordinary man, no bleeding Christ,Dressed up like a king in mockery?Or do you see the Lamb of God, your Priest?

Offended by their fists, their drool, their laughter,If you saw these brutal thugs at playWould you raise your voice, defend His honor?Or would you hide yourself and turn away?

Who would not be counted on God’s side?But to avoid His fate, would you not hide?A Man of grief and Sacrifice, He prayedFor those who cursed and battered Him – and stayed


241


THE CARRYING OF THE CROSS

The morning sun is heavy, but the CrossIs heavier; the rough and clumsy woodDeforms His back, the weighted lashes snap And open up new wounds – a run of bloodDrips down the gutters, and His thorny capNear blinds him with its bleed and makes Him slipOn what He’s bled, and fall, and slip again –The soldiers curse and whip Him to His feet—On and on—the people yell like fiends.He passes where I stand—our gazes meet—

I hear my own small voice cry out in shameTo see the Lord of mercy so defiled.He knows my face somehow and speaks my name –The Son of God is whispering: “My child”


242


THE CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF OUR LORD

I thought I saw the risen birds fly upBut they were only fallen leaves—a gustOf southern wind had made them whirl and leap—The men around the Crucifix were ghosts

Who disappeared like smoke when flames go out—Bestial bellowing and mockeryWent still, and only death was there to shoutIts silent thunder, summon death that day

Alone we died together, God of life,Not heaven’s Lord for now, but only OneWho suffers for His love and then forgivesWhat crushes Him – a double crucifixion

You are my weak deliverer, my strength,My helpless God who from the highest hillCalled Golgotha can see as far as deathAnd further toward both paradise and hell

Tell us Lord of life what You have seen,Be with us now as we are crucified—Thieves and lovers of Your Holy Name,We crave the love of Christ we have denied

Show us what You know, beyond all wounds,Past being and unbeing, save and bless,For we will climb the hill of anguish soonTo find the dreadful mercy of the Cross


243


THE RESURRECTION

What miracle was made inside the tomb?What transformation, wonder of deliverance?What tree of Jesse growing from what stem?What new creation rising from a chrysalis?

As I am blind to see inside a stone,Deaf to hear the music of the dawn,Touchless to compare the moon and sun,Speechless to describe transfiguration

How can I express that moment’s lengthWhen death before became a living after,When three dimensions, length and breadth and widthJoined again with time to make a Savior

What thrushes sang, what morning flowers opened,What sunlight spread its runners on the grassesFor Jesus Christ to step on and be welcomed?What coronation for a King who passes?

And yet it was so quiet in the garden—The motes of dust, the insects in the air—It seemed as if our Savior was a workmanAnd nothing more than ordinary there


244


THE ASCENSION

Day was rising when Our Lord rose up,Sun was rising, wind was rising,Dew was rising from the meadows—stepsOf angels rose as if on ladders climbing

Why do you stand gaping overheadYou friends of Jesus? Sorrowing is done;Christ the Lord has risen from the dead, The kingdom of salvation has begun

Or will it vanish, never to be seen?By sunlight and by starlight we rememberPurity and kindliness unstained,Storm and calm and sanctifying power

Friends of Jesus, why do you distrustHis promises, for did He not foretellHe would return within the Eucharist,Prevail by grace against gates of hell?

When you feel His love within you burnTake this as a sign He will return;When you see a flame consume a flameSoul by soul He will His kingdom claim


245


THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Morning in the city, clear and calm,Crowds from everywhere, no sign of storm;Climb the towers, look from east to west—Pines and cypresses are motionless,Smoke from Temple fires standing straight,The sky is cloudless, blue, immaculate

Something from the desert groans and moves,Or from the zenith, north or south, above,From everywhere, a thunder at the door,Jerusalem is shaken, forests roar—Down upon the twelve apostles fallFlames that do not burn, yet burn them all

Peter’s face like Moses’ is aflameAnd all the others burning are the same,The prophecy of David is fulfilled:Christ has come and death has been annulled;Slaves of death to liberty be won!And they who listen hear it in their tongue


246


THE ASSUMPTION

You could not find her, though an angel did:Self-effacing maiden, meek and shy—Commonplace the village where she lived,Difficult to reach and far away

Climb above the town: from there you seeDeep and green the valley of Jezreel,Transfiguration Mountain; westerlyThe blue-cloaked bosom of the ocean swells

Woman of the sun, the angel bowed,Splendid with the glory of the Throne—Take the gifts rejected by the proud:Sacrificial loves: your Son’s, your own

Draw the sun about you, take the starsThat circle in the zenith as a crown,Ivory of lilies, heaven’s rose,Self-forgetful giving, Passion’s passion

Show us life eternal, death untombed,Merciful, you are what we become


247


THE CORONATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Lovely Mary, Mary kind and sweet,Merciful, a crescent at your feet,Mary-heart delighted with your Son,Queen of heaven endless and begun

Mary patient, diligent and mild,Mother-love united with your Child,Wear the crown of all felicity,Gladness of the Holy Trinity

Crown of chastity and temperance,Crown of clemency and continence,Crown of light and everlasting day,Kingdom crown which nothing can delay

Crown of stars whose shinings never cease,Crown of love and never-ending peace,Crown of innocence and joyfulness,Mary crown of heaven, heaven-blessed


248


THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

From heaven to the slopes of Mount Hermon,From snow fields to the Sea of Galilee,Between the deserts Jordan surges downIn spates of spring to fill a salty sea

From heaven too comes One from Nazareth,Down by grace to give His flesh as bread,To irrigate the deserts of our death,To bleed the salty river of His blood

Holy One, you step into the stream:The earthly river flows past Bethany;And though the Baptist does not know your nameHe hears the wings of God’s descending glory

Down upon the Source of Love he spillsA paradise, a Jordan for our ills


249


THE WEDDING FEAST AT CANA

A boy and girl in matrimony blessedAt Khirbet Kana, town of Galilee;Jesus and the Blessed Virgin guests,And how He is the Lord we soon shall see

The mother of the Lord said to the Lord:“The wine is gone and yet they still rejoice,The Word of God need only utter words,The waters of the Earth obey Your voice

“So why not let the merriment go onAnd let the merrymakers drink their fill?”“Mother, what is that to Me?” “My Son,Let all be done according to Your will.”

Wine of joy on Earth and joy in heaven,Happiness of man and wife to be,Sweet to drink the sweetness He has given,Youth and life and long posterity

Fill the jars with water of the well,Let the wine come pouring from the brim,Each to one another drink, and tellHow rain and wine and pleasure are from Him


250


THE PROCLAMATION OF THE KINGDOM

The Kingdom’s where? In blind men’s eyes that see?In corpses waking, lepers clean of skin?Now we see ourselves decayed as they—A charnel race unholy and undone

Christ who comes to cure us takes our shape,Our weaknesses, our flesh, our frailty:Cripples walk and lifeless children wake,Demons by compulsion leave their prey

This is not the cure, it is a signOf pilgrimage, and Jesus Christ who livedAmong us, even though He was divineWas mortal here and voyaged through the grave

To see the ripple in Siloam’s pool,The wheat that grows, the harvest and the yieldIs to be shown the passing of the soul:Here we are, we die, the tomb is sealed

But as the flowered galaxies decay,The stone of death itself is rolled away,And as the ripples of Siloam dieScales of blindness tumble from the eye

And as the wheat is sickled from the stalk,The leper’s cured, the crippled beggars walk,And as the servant stands from his sickbed:Wine is Christ, infinity is bread


251


THE TRANSFIGURATION

When heavy rain comes down the shepherds shelterIn a grotto underneath Mount TaborAnd with them take the new born lambs to warmBy fires that they light against the storm

Once, I heard, that Jesus Christ had goneTo climb the mount with Peter, James and John,To see the clouds of April turn asideFrom Tabor’s summit, heaven open wide

Then Christ shone out with His uncovered lightAs if the sun had come to conquer night(So much was day like night upon this EarthBefore the Blessed Virgin gave Him birth)

His garment too was brilliant as the robeA sun might wear if any star were clothed,While in this brilliance three disciples stood—It burned no more than sunlight on a wood

Those tired shepherds rested in a caveUnderneath the wonder that God gave,Ate and slept around a poor man’s fireWhile Christ was glorified a little higher


252


THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST

The Temple is a furnished upper roomThe night that He becomes our paschal lamb;He rests but not between the cherubim:Angels blow the trumpet of the ram

Who will lay His body on the altar?God Himself will stretch upon the wood;Tell the twelve apostles to remember,But will the offering be understood?

His acolytes are ordinary men;There are no chanting Levites to provideThe ceremony or the easy victim—The burning on the altar is our pride

Who will climb the mountain of the Lord?An ordinary room is where He givesThe blessing that the Pharisees ignored,The body of the Passover who lives

Then come with us, His temple never falls,The Holiest of the holies is exposed,The chambers of His living heart the wallsAnd all may drink the sacrifice that flows


253


THE MAN ON THE SHORE

Bread and fish on charcoal steaming. PerchIs sweet-fleshed manna in the light of dawn,When all the surface of the lake is washedWith amethyst and sails of spreading crimson

Coals are red, the color of the bloodWhich rivered from the dying flesh of Christ;The living Man returns with fish and bread,A sign of heaven’s mercy given thrice

Flesh and bread and wine are what we need,So great a haul of fish is brought to shore;He who could the fifty hundreds feedComes to feed a half a dozen more

We know the stranger standing on the beachBut dare not speak His name until He speaks


254


OLD ADAM

A dark red snake, a beast which has no friend,Curls S-shaped inside a vernal pool(A hollow like an iris lashed with fernClear fed by a stream, it will not heal)

The color of dull brick, a swimming arrowSlides beneath a mummied maple leaf,Sluggish, it has no where else to goBecause the ferny hillside is so steep

Glide but do not fall, the April soilIs cold and stiff, the warming sun not loyal;The eye that gazes seasonward is blindAnd trustful is the soul of serpent-kind

If now old Adam sleeping were awake,Forbidden not at all he’d tempt the snake


255


THE LAMP BLOWN OUT

Two men in a room –One listenedOne questioned

A yellow flame of oilShivered in a draftBut was not soiled

A serpent windBreathed out the lightTo heal the dead

A Nicodemus windSpoke wooden beamsIn human breath

The lamp blown outThis wind was likeThe whispers of two men

You must be bornIn rivers of the spirit—This life will not end


256


MARTYRS

Restored or notThe great hall shines,Mosaics burnWhat stone reflects

Basilica Outside the Walls—The headless roamThrough catacombs

Before your birthThe head of PaulBounced three timesWhen the soldier swung

Bounced three timesFor the Trinity,His blood met Christ’s,Jabbok to Jordan

A blade of steelThat’s dipped in light—The sharp sword swingsThe north wind blows

The faith still kneelsAnd so do others,No prophets theyCan still be martyrs


257


HARVEST

“Have the people sit down”And then what, expectant prayerfulness?Or rumbling stomachs?Indeed, there is no great respectFor prophecy before the fact

Jesus was a miracle,They were famished from a tramp,Footsore too, excitable—And yet they sat down peaceably,Five thousand famished orderly

He found their food, perhaps from air?Moments vanished,Fear dispersed,And all at once there was a meal—Which no one seemed to think unreal

Later when the Romans reaped,When slanderers were gathering,When God was charged with blasphemyAlthough He’d fed the multitude—None were shocked by what ensued

For if the holy grain grows wildWho’ll reproach the Holy Child?Even though a slave is healedIt may appear in your own field,And you must harvest will or no,Or starve and let the wild grain grow


258


REASON

The sun was going down as they walked home,April in the highlands can be chill,Pine and cypress strain against the stone,North winds track invisibly along the hills

A man came up beside them, as if heHad caught them up, although no one had beenBehind them on this lonely country way, As if the empty shadows had been seen

To have a man within them wake and move. They looked up startled, jostled from a dreamTo find the one they had been dreaming ofTake form in daylight, live and speak to them.

Black iron rolled across the limestone steepNight facing hills and coalesced, Darkness rose beneath their puzzled feet –Who was this traveler, this sunset guest?

You know Him, know Him yet cannot recallWhere you have known Him, or the name He bears,But as the night comes on and west light fallsYou know Him by the secret that He shares

You know Him, yet you will not tell your soulThe secret that your intuition knows,For if it can be true the dead come wholeFrom dissolution, where are His grave clothes?


259


JOHN 6, 22–29

I long to sit in a boat on the waterTo hear the hush of the oars, to seeThe line of the sliding hull pass overThe shapeless depths, the ripples’ play

But where is He, the one who gaveThe famished bread though there was none?Faith is good but better saveSome baskets’ full to sell and lend

Take to the boats, pick up the oars,We’ll find Him if it takes all year;Pull for the town on the other shore,Who else can make free bread appear?

The skin of the lake was like a drumThey beat with oars, the wind was cold,And when they arrived at CapernaumThe bread they’d saved was stale and old

When did you get here? Lord, they said,It took us hours pulling hard.Have you come to eat more breadBut not to hear My wheaten word?

Do My work, believe in Me,I flourish like the growing wheatBoth here and in eternity—If you believe then you shall eat


260


BREAD FROM HEAVENJohn 6, 22–29

Show a sign. Astonish us.We’ve seen you heal the lame and blind—Can you raise a king from dust?David, Saul or Solomon?

I can heal the blind and lameBut only as a sign of grief,For I must bear the cross of blameTo sanctify a dying thief

Show a sign and make us liveAs long as Noah of the flood—I have many gifts to giveBut none so precious as My blood

Use your power, give us wealthPosterity and happiness—I was seized by night and stealthAnd who can pay for such distress?

Will you tell us where to goTo find the heaven of the rich?Heaven is the One you knowWhose inner garment has no stitch

I have nothing of this worldDeliverance is all I own,And this I give though I was soldFor thirty silver coins of Rome


261


CREATURES

Another discourse? Living bread?We see His face, we hear the wordsBut make no more of what He saysThan thunder bursts or singing birds

Bread is bread but not a manSo how can He be food and drink?Wheat is grass and grass is land—My Lord, how hard it is to think

Who’s the Father He must please,Father rage or Father love?Shadows pass beneath the trees,Ominous the mourning doves

A brazen serpent held aloftIs God the Son, the bread of life;At close of day the wind is soft,But death is sharper than a knife

Now we listen, we are drawnAs flowers open to the sun;Night is followed by the dawnBut to the death who’ll follow? Some.

Speak again, we are afraid,This little life is precious, rare;We the creatures You have madeWill shake our heads, and dumbly stare


262


JOHN 6: 44–51

Wild grain, holy grainSeed and sun and winter rain,Kernel spitted with your thumb,Find no flour, not a crumb

Crush the kernel in your teeth,Ripe and soft the taste is sweet,White the seed beneath the hull—John the Baptist ate, was full

Here’s a Man who says He’s wheat,Eyes and ears, head and feet,Those who eat Him will not die—Impossible, He’s mad, He lies

Up the dead from graves, like seeds,Wine from water, bread that breeds,Prophetic bread, prophetic wine—Minds revolt, but they are blind

An olive tree, a dove, a sheepGoats that on the mountain leap—Thoughts like these we hold in mind,Not the leaping madness kind

He’s like us, a face, a name,He lives within a human frameYet somehow He stands above—Grain of madness, grain of love


263


FLANK AND CROWN

Leave them, leave them all behindResolution and regress,The outer face, the face of glassCircumvention, inner signs

Incompletion, death and painFear, impatience, ignorance,Instinct’s unenduring dance—Downpour of the temporal rain

Leave them to be done away,Ocean sea and shadow-fall,A mountainous and massive pallWhich covers night and day

Leave them, leave them, let them go,Things completed, things undone,Leave them buried by the sun,Memory to melt like snow

Injury of soul and mind,Flame of greed along the skin,Whatever wounding lets them inLeave them all behind

Leave them, leave them, flesh and steelWorld of now, world of then,Present, future knit as one,Leave the shameful and unreal

Leave behind the world in placeLeaping forward to enfoldThe singular and manifold,Leave them, leave them, back and face

Leave them, river time is passing,Cross to see the mountain peak,Here is light above to seek,Flank and crown, the everlasting


264


ARTIST

A garter snake A jade and golden whipLoosely essed atop a windfallBlack eye shining

What den have you emerged from,What tangled ball of serpent wireTo rest beside the trailIn April sunshine?

Rest from sleepAnd from amphibian dreamsOf toad and throatAnd leather eggs

Slip beneath the leaves,Whipwire tail the stiffened last,Unconscious treasure, vainless jewel,Drawn and scaled enamel

The Artist who devised youPlanned your keels and scales before the start of time,Drew you out from sleepTo meet us now


265


SHEEP UNWILLING

Sheep? We eat them.Well do I remember my namesakeOn a dinner plate

And we?Sharp time the slayerCuts the throats of braggarts, bawlers

Life bleeds time and dies,Whose shepherd is the wolf,The butcher

Yet there is anotherWhose fold enfolds forever— Around His shoulders is the lamb of mercy

The gate? Death.The sheep fold? Life.The shepherd you shall see

He will catch the stubborn,The crook will snare the foreleg,Pull it forward, sheep unwilling


266


30 APRIL 1945

I saw the corpse of Herod by the roadside,Fox that Jesus spoke of, petty cur,Beetles colored midnight screwed his hide,Tunneled through his muzzle, ginger fur

Herod of the moonlight and the dusk,Tetrarch of the meadow and the dawn,Flaunter of the fire in his brushFlat against the April celandine

Once we saw him skulking near the paddockOnce between the forest and the road,Once a dream that made the kennel bark,Tyrant of the copperhead and toad

Herod, you were thought to be impureLike foxes in the ruling of the law,And now you are transfigured to manureThough once you slew the mice beneath your paw

And now the raising of the dead proceeds,The demons flee and justice is proclaimed,But still your ashes fertilize your seedsAnd still the Holy Innocents are slain


267


DAWN OF IRON

We live in darkness fallen – this black sunConceals the more that day illuminatesBlind Nazareth—the prophecy is hiddenWithin a night of ignorance and hate

And so when she refuses to be solaced,Wills herself to die although the PriestProclaims her liberation, none are blessed— Christ Himself is passing through her streets

Synagogues of innocence are emptyThough Christ Himself construes the sacred scroll—The serpent of catastrophe the sentry,A desert mounts the gateway and the wall

City blind and arrogant you sleep,Dawn of iron plunged within the day—The precipice of evening is steepAnd how will you descend without your eyes?


268


CANNIBALS

Adam has entered the forest,The leaves come around him with veils,Mountains return to their service,His magic omnipotence fails

Streams will keep flowing without us,The silver of midnight to blessLindens bowed down to the service,A humanless wild eucharist

A ripple of waves in the meadow,Cresting of grass in the field,Nowhere a fear of tomorrow,Winds of the darkness will heal

And all will be wordless without usUnless a few chosen remain,The chalice of moonlight the serviceAnd cannibals out in the rain


269


SHE MOVES ON…

She looks out her windowI know her gardenThe lawn sloping down to the narrow canal

She waits for the shapeless one to enter—Death who has nothingTo call his own

For she has renounced all analgesisExcept for the patchThey put on her skin

All food and waterExcept for the modicumA short way to go and she travels lightly

She is the mistress now, not prey,Though she may notRefuse to go

And when he comes inHe will be the familiar friendWhom she knows and not the foe

He is the friendWho knew her to love,It will not be the endWhen she moves on

I know why she needsNo more than her eyesFor she has richesTo give when she dies


270


DROWN EVILFor St. J.E.

Don’t expect answers from people,They know nothing;Yorick’s skull knew more than Yorick understood—Drown evil in your good

I did not know poor YorickBut I did know his dog—The foxes stole the dead dog’s skullTo question with their teeth, but it was dull

Wise brave foxes, stupid dogBut duller still the high-racked running stag;The harem-keeping stag died in the wood—Drown evil in your good

In this world two things exist:Death and life, those two alone; One lay down to rot, the other rose and stood—Drown evil in your good


271


PASSOVER LOVE

Starved for love is a hard way to die,The pain is severeThe anguish prolonged

Those who are sentenced by that self-juryAre ravaged by rageInfected by fury

Let those who are dying eat of that breadAnd live once more,No longer be dead

Passover love, to be given someA sovereign dose:By pound, by crumb


272


ZERO

I am sequestered in the morgue with ghostsThey are the living Self-inject cold formalin to stay awakeIn vain, they green and pit and ooze red broth

Living dead take centuries to decompose—A docket tag is fastened to each toe —What is the coded number of the felony?Living death, oblivion – the number zero

Twenty-three pale stiff phantasms gaze—Other clothed cadavers testify; Immunity and cold indifference be praised,Those compelled to speak the truth are forced to lie

The dead exhort the dead to keep their graves,Earth is turned and harrowed to train sterile ground—Deeply bury chaos underneath and paveThe underworld—lest chaos make a sound


273


WORK

Wolves are waiting in the woods,I saw a flash of white and gray,Another brace beside them stood,Dog and bitch devoured prey

Two and two, a hungry pack,Frothing chops and yet they speakIn human voices as they trackThe smellings of the old and weak

The leader has a human heart,Three quarters of a human brain,One organ is a work of art,The other is inflamed, insane

Their master is a dying man,Creator in the fourth degree,An artificer made by hand,An artifact yet creaturely

I will take the whole of him,No, leave us some the others bark,And then they tear him limb from limb,The worker by his living work


274


SPARROW’S EGG…

Sparrow’s eggNot much smaller than the Virgin’s wombA yellow speck

How did the Lord of allFit so much withinA cylinder so small?

He is the sparrowWho folded up His wingsAnd made them narrow

Low and small and narrow,A world to saveAnd hell to harrow


275


STONE EMPIRE

The suffering of helpless childrenThe suffering of speechless animalsThe suffering of helpless creaturesOblations of the heart of stone

Stone by stone, block by blockMetropolises made of rock, Grains insensible to fireMove but do not breathe or tire

Whale-grey limestone, mantle’s dust,Set like walls upended, thrust,Mountainous, then igneous,Rising, sinking, but not stinking

Inhuman, yet withal not cruel,Dumb and brainless, yet no fool,Smooth the slate and granite fire,Slab by slab the stone empire—Other stone to which we turnThat will sink down, and down, and burn


276


CRYSTAL

The forest is an emerald—Walk inside the facets,A step cut all aroundOr pendeloque

The gem smith is so cleverHe can turn the facetsBy holding up the sunLike a loop

The emerald is duskThough at noonIt is a diamondBrilliant cut

The forest is a crystal—Inclusions of brown deerRun through it,Disappear

But in the morningIt is a sapphireWith a starIn the tree tops

Now I tell youThe whole world is crystalIced fireAnd light moves through it


277


THE PADDOCK

How peaceful, in the paddock, horses graze,A tall frame of trees surrounds the herd,They nibble at the tender dandelions,Tear at the succulent spring grasses,Snort and reach their lips along the ground,They are alone as dusk elongates shadows

Who will come to lead them to their stalls?Why does no one come to befriend them?When fullest dusk has stretched itself awayAnd night with stiffened cloth hangs close beside them,Stretches like a wall from tree to tree,What will come from kingdoms of the forest?

They stamp and sniff at one another, jostle,Move together, curve their necks and stare—This is the paddock of the living soul,Night surrounds the world and closes in


278


BRIGHT OBJECT

I held in my hand Rotating, shimmering, scintillatingA transparent bloodcell-shapedBut colorless bright object,With a pale and hard blue aura

It precessed counter-clockwiseForming helixes in space;Continuous emerging waves—They traveled roundThe flexible circumference

Round and round the figure wobbledVibrated, and something lived, A germ, a pith of pollenHard and yellow brownDeveloping inside the spinning cell

It was a film-skinned bubble-worldAn almost weightless fieldIn which I saw two wings developGrowing from the pithOf this dynamic spinning cell

And then a thing withinStretched out its wings,Fluttered in my hand—“Do not be afraid,It is a living thing that I have made

“See, I let you holdThis creature of my manifold—The place you call an emptinessIs egg and nest and chrysalis,New and bright and old”


279


MONSTER SERIATIM

A shadow man, a shadow deer,Quadruped, a man or beast—Tendrils stretching bend and reach,Poles of saplings, poplar, beech

Penned behind the bars of shadeA specter doubles, stares and fades, Meets the climber on the hill—Takes one step, and then stands still

A human head, a cervid skull,Flat unhorned or round and full,Upright standing, on all fours A monster of the brightness blurs

Deer or man, or something else,Neither true, nor real, nor false,From worlds away between the barsOf sentience slip prisoners

Once apart to be released:Binaries of man and beast


280


DAWN

A troubled night – but with the dawnThe Virgin comes with hands outspread—She opens up her cloak and lays it down

It is the blessed sky of dawn, clear blue—The purity of all God’s innocence,Which is the garment of her love

The light of day is mercy, and the dawnHas nothing to forgive or to regretAlthough the night was long


281


THE BIRTH

In the deer yard lies the doeNo Gabriel alights nearby,Vines around the maple growThe sparrow and the warbler cry

If only not to Adam’s race,If only not to Bethlehem,But in this green and solemn placeChrist had come to sinless men

No magi in a donkey’s stallHad traveled far to kneel and bless,No Nazareth to save us allHad soaked with blood our wretchedness

Or Judas served Him with a kissThough cleverness is seldom wise—Perpetual is genesisIf none betray and nothing lies

But Mary is the sinless oneAnd Gabriel to her has gone,It is the doe whose lying inDelivers up the shining fawn


282


TRINITY

I live closer to the east than youOne step, one house, one western facing windowFarther, so at sunrise I can seeHow great the solar image is, how fiery

At morning when your eastern glass returnsAn image of the glory of the sun,Tamed and flattened, spread so I can seeA burning eye that would unvision me

If sighted eye to eye, reflects and showsThe blinding sun by seeming to oppose—In that sub-tending track of light I seeTime as well as fire near to me

Time has etched the window glass with flameAnd tracked its analogue across the pane—By sun and eye and back again we seeThe whole of love as one great Trinity


283


US

You ask why children should be punishedWhen the fathers sin,But when the branch defiles the creekThe river is polluted,And the river feeds the sea

No punishment exists – it isA consequence, causality

Above the tide line crippled flimsy huts,Crumpled hovels made of broken boards and sticks,Where filthy-faced sick derelictsCrouch blackened by their own smoky fires(More smoke, no fire)

But the old sea, irresistible and powerfulFolds and falls in low and heavy waves against the shore

On the world’s first ancient morning,Cold and dawn-awaiting,Angels eyeless and ineffable,The wingèd seas will wash awayNot any sins of ours, but us


284


THE SONG

Can two birds sing in harmonyOr is it one whose throat is double,Made of reed and twine?

The songs entwine in helixesAbove, below, above in pitch,Reedy, rough, yet clear

Dusk again – again, again,As if inside an emeraldA clear inclusion spreads

Twined and twined the voices reachUntil the song is stilled,The emerald is filled


285


MEMORY

Once long ago I stood on a mountain summitAnd the earth was white and dark with snow and granite,I remember cold wind biting at my face—How is it in the mind, the memory of that place?

What is there in mind? See the Gold-ascended, God above all, golden, Lord of life unended,Memory’s recall, skilled and sacred work,Artifacts of stars, of blessed light and dark

Why should we remember, when day before us fallsPresently—what need to see beyond the walls?The fortress of the moment, no animal requiresMemory to know the stars as signal fires


286


THREAD

Birds are coming, see them fall,Glory, praise forever, woe,Wings surmount the highest wall,Winds across the mountains go

June the month, the sixth of whichLies upon a Monday whenThread and needle pull the stitch,Cross the dark meridian

No one shall remain behindAll are carried into dawn,Spools of consequence unwindEmpty, for the thread is gone

Wound around so long ago—Glory, praise forever, woe


287


CLAY

Are you thirsty, pilgrim?There is a well of liquidFire – raise and swallow some—Drink and be not scalded

How is drinking to be done?There is no pail, no rope—A cup of clay there is aloneTo scoop the fire up

Even though the fire gleamsReach down with your arm,Even though the fire streamsYou will not come to harm

Raise the fire to your lips,It will not damage clay,Drink the fire, every drop,And burn your fear away


288


CADUCEUS

Firefly,The rain will not stop,Two serpents climb my walking stickAnd lick my hand

Human,The night is dark,The summer night is dark.Let go the stick

Thunder,I hear the iron hooves of goatsClatteringOn heavy clouds

Human,We draw the wagons of the underworld—The wheels that rollStrike fire


289


PAGAN SACRIFICE

Poison falls on Loki’s faceGiant, titan, savage god,A human monster in our place,Flesh and blood and stone and wood

His feet are double salmon finsHis shoulders are a wolf’s withers,His face is human, yours and mine,Yours and mine and his, brothers

The serpent on the hanging rockDribbles down envenomed droolTo punish Loki for his lackOf honesty, a soundless toll

In the left eye, then the right,Atonement-less his sacrifice,He loses nothing but his sight,He’ll keep his life at any price


290


THE HERALD

Royal on a green throneThirty meters highIt ruled the sky alone

Green hair, gray skinThe courtiers were small The herald was the north wind

The ignorant said white oakBut what was the nameWhen the north wind spoke?


291


THE DOUBLE

Purgation is a boulevardInfinity a city,Cafes in perspectiveRecede to perpetuity

Summon up a coffee, Passing figures form,The waiters wear white apronsA cloth around the arm

For whom are we waiting?A friend, a guest perhaps—Silent grows the traffic,We hear the sound of steps

Someone that we knew,A figure of the pastInto a violet eveningDwindling and vast

Should we sip and linger?A desolation grows—Waiter I will pay And follow where He goes


292


LIGHTNING

Silent tabernacle, mind, flesh and bloodDo bless unvoiced, speak although unfaced,Burn unmelting, flame by neither wax nor wood

To chalice and to platter held confined,You draw the cloak of space around your boltAnd this we see as form, baked meal and wine

You mark our inexpressive faces from within,Above, beside, all through Your sacrificeThat by unspeakable mutation of Your flesh we are unsinned

And so if I stay here, the chapel chamberFolds around Your face, your lightning formThat struck the soul but once and out of danger

Catch lightning, hold, or be alone and pray,It is the same as if a stroke self-held at bayHad hovered overhead, beside, would stay


293


SORROWING JUDAS

In the wall out of sight, a dull bell sounds,Heavy and flat, old silver, but where?The rafters, the joists, the joins are of wood,Nothing to ring or make a loud noise,No resonant metal, pewter or copper, Base metal pipes run up from the kitchenBut here, on the east, there’s nothing but woodAnd yet on the inside, as if from a tower

On the sun-rising side, where night last paintedThe smooth-falling dusk in a coat of shadowsA dull chime sounds – is the deep Earth moving? Hear the soft bell of the Christ’s first MassAs the bearers move off to the limestone cavern,The bell of procession, one-voiced and silver,Women half-shrouded, wool-robed men,The beasts of the Magi, pack-saddles empty

No one can hear the burial summonsExcept for the ghosts who bear dead Christ;Behind the wood wall of the holy of holiesSadducees count their thirty coins,Let fall each one, as each is countedIt rings like a bell as it falls on the others,But no one knows where the silver was pressed,Not you, not I, not the sorrowing Judas


294


WINGS

Tiger swallowtailBlack as lead and yellow,Radiant detailsAbove a boggy hollow

The sulfur in the clayYou suck up with your tongue—Yellow gold displayTriumphant in the dung

Humans have no wingsBut also live on dust—Whatever triumph bringsAnd clay as red as rust


295


SMALL ONE

These headless brutes can feel no fearAnd yet they roarThe one who weeps a coniferThe one who bellows is a poplar

The clouds have wrists and boneless armsFingers made of mist unwarmedMuscular their rising formsWhich have no flesh but brainless storms

A small red bird comes forward, stopsCloser then with cautious hopsA mind, and eyes like gleaming dropsThat see the rain, the wild treetops


296


THE GAMBLER

Scattering gold coins on green baizeGoldfinches fling against the trees,Self-gambling, for they must breed

Who gambles these? Who countsFledglings of themselves as gold,A gambler’s profitable amount?

What beauty then is fair return,Which is more profitable to earn?That bright scattering of birds is dealtAs revenues of love, and will not melt


297


SIGN

Some call the ancient pear the sign immortal,Others quince, the apple or the hipOf flowering blood rose—though not a gallThere is a wounding thorn between the hand and lip

A downward thorn, the crown of the immortalDoomed Christ, the living Man who overcameLove’s deposition and the tomb, death’s portal,Oblivion to find but neither sleep nor dream

They name, but who can know, the fruitful symbol—Apple, quince, the elder pear, the roseWhich Adam might have picked to be immortalBefore the gate of paradise was closed

What tree is tall with immortality?It is the Cross, no crop but Christ, since HeWith temple curved and clasped around the EarthOutspread His arms to bear immortal birth

Limb from limb the corpus grew and boreChrist’s mortal flesh unwooded, life once more,And that which grew still spreads itself and grows,Bears what falls and falling still bestows


298


THE INVISIBLE

Inside the weeds that barely coverHer coal-striped flanks a feral catHides from the pregnant moon above her,Lays her arrowish soft ears flat

Electrum eyes, reflecting raysSearch for a sleepless meadow vole,A mare in the paddock snuffs and neighs,Dusk in the woods is silvered coal

Under the moon the heron rowsWith curved deliberate tapered flightTo where the chips of moonlight showA surface lit to silver night

Humid trees, the living woodExhale their cool and perfect bloodAs spray by spray they breathe their fillAnd grow by height invisible


299


THE RITE

The wings are gauze and black, so frailThat wind should crush them till they fail,Their abdomens of jointed steelReflect the zenith when they wheel;Bulbous turrets hold their eyesImmovable, blue damselflies

Flagging with their wings they sendCode in blue that has no endBut those composite eyes can read:“Catch and copulate and breed.”Stream and stone with golden plateOf falling sunlight while they mate


300


THE ROAD

The deer, the roadside,Traffic slows,Her death denied—The nervous doe

The species humanAlso waitsTo stop, advanceIn front of fate

And law eternal,Massive, slowImmense, inertialKills the doe


301


GARNET FROM BOHEMIA

Currants on their stalks, their clustersNot quite ruby, smooth red coral,Not like stone of earth in lusterBut when ripened edible

Garnet from BohemiaIntensely red may be their like,Not much their inferiorWhen set in silver like a stalk

Not of earth but out of itNor from the pit but having them,By slanting sun their fire lit,Both mineral and flesh may gleam

Such affluence of light and flameMakes earth and air and light the same,And who has given such bright giftsMay bury them before He lifts


302


Catbird flying, perch on a fence,What will be happening five years hence?Catbird sideways, tail cocked upWhat will move and what be stopped?

Now by dusk the glow worm gleams,I see what is and what may seem,The nervous few who scour dustTo find a crumb or find a crust

Every rich one shall be poor,All at peace shall be at war,All who pray shall find their peaceBut all that swells shall be decreased

All that love shall then prevailAll that do not love will fail,Light is small and darkness vast,But light shall draw to light at last

Catbird mewing, what do you say?Day will be night and night be day


303


TORCH AND FLAME

A three-foot fox, across the roadRuns slower than a fox with four—Broad daylight near the solstice brightAs balks of gold - runs not at night

What crippling, urgent errand boreThis weight upon her as she wentBetween the daylight-kindled trees,One paw held up by hurt, disease

But I have seen the flash at dusk,The fox afire rising upTo run between the sacrificeOf Genesis—redemption twice

The covenant of torch and flameThat split the butchered promised beasts—The heifer, goat, the dove, the ram,The sacrifice for Abraham


304


THE VOLLEY

Why are there gunshots off in the woodsDeep dark green, fern and beech?A snap and a snap again, small boreBut sharp and distinct, two shells from the breech

No, it’s the fall of a leaning treeSpraddled and clutched to the sticky clay,Red and viscid and smooth as greaseThat let the old river tree fall away

The creek with its nibbling teeth ate underYear after year in the April spateUntil it had pulled the soil out from underAnd that’s how the violent sometimes eat

Snap went the fibers, breaking in twoSmall arms fire, likely as notAnd shrapnel impelled through the air went throughThe vine and the fern, the clean and the rot

A volley of fire, a fusilladeAnd then a great body, falling, then proneAnd silence, the other trees still on paradeAnd the dead one, as always, at rest and alone


305


THE EAGLE OF JOHN

It’s only a rock dove, a common pigeonBut the fanned flight feathers, the bank and turnBecome in flight annunciation

White hilled clouds mount up from the foothills,Terraced in white from the stagnant swalesInto the high gray summer gales

Gabriel speaks in a thunderous storm—Though long delayed it will not be long,And those who see a dove are wrong

The eagle of John spreads pinion-wideThe wings of a storm that covers prideAnd all of the wisest doves will hide


306


INTO THE RAIN…

Into the rainTwo brown umbrellas riseLet go their veils

Dry belowThough heavy rain comes downThey do not shrink

Even proneBlind ignorance can’t see What holds them up


307


THE SPECTRUM

A massive marble body fallingNot one of us knows who we are

The universe was built for thisA body falling through the stars

A wall approaching rapidlyA line of every frequency

Violet, beyond, through red,The living pass, but not the dead

Frontier of the infiniteAnd all the marble bodies falling

Through the wall into the worldThat passes never – bright beyond

But there’s another body fallingMade of darkness and deceit

A mass that’s great enough to twistTime around the space of it

But never can that body passThrough every color with its mass


308


THE BURIAL OF KING WEST

Over the hill where mulberries grow,Swallow, swallow, what do you know?Fast as you fly, small as you areSouth to the sun you travel far

“Quiver wings on a mulberry leafA dragonfly beyond belief,Blueberry blue with a bloom of whiteOars at rest to row in flight”

Dragonfly, what do you see?“Mosquitoes, flies, a floating bee,Here I straddle legs and restGnats and midges to digest

“Forty grackles I have seenRise from barricades of green,Black from green like night from dayWhile overhead the swallows play”


309


INTERCEPTOR

Night-black hornet armed to kill,Suave as molded metal curved,A hypersonic aircraft hullBut this is chitin, hard and proved

Mid-night teardrop abdomen,Optic blisters packed with eyes,Artifact and specimen,Avionics optimized

Matte-black body, oval wings,She hangs beneath them, hovers low,Swiftly flexes, sits her stingSqueezes venom and lets go

What machinist molds the same?Smooth and perfect of her kind, Crushed against a window pane—Three hundred million years’ design

Although the insolent destroyHer with a blow, she is no toy,Configuration sober, clean,An ancient weapon, no machine


310


THE GREEN GRASS

Christ within the limestone layHis white bones melted into clay,His blood to rain I could not seeFell on green Gethsemane

Flesh without the clay can growNo more than blood and water flowUnless dead Jesus rise and seeThe green grass of Gethsemane

From beginning to the endLife to death to life again,Christ the first and last to beThe green grass of Gethsemane


311


EIGHT WHITE HEARTS…

Eight white hearts in spirals riseTwo white cabbage butterfliesFour wings four around a shaftOf emptiness, unconscious craft

How high the pole of air unknownBut round and up the hearts have flownTo raise an empty spiral treeOf winged invisibility


312


STICKS AND FEATHERS

Fawn of exile, ears aflame,Red as colored window panes,Timid, gentle-stepping oneBurning in the level sun

Then withdrawing into shadeFawn put out what light has made,Plunge your candles into greenCoverts and be dark unseen

Wren command a garden stake—Listen to the song I make,Sticks and feathers are my nest,Where the sun goes down I rest

Now the sunlight burns, I sing,Purple thistles round me ring


313


ON THE SAME PAGE

A mazurka of ChopinA boom of thunderAll through a summer afternoon

What has one to do with the other?Only this: they played togetherOn the same green page


314


THREE HOUNDS

One dreams of lightning in the west, world’s end,Another of death’s angel walking by the TiberAnd I had dreamed of Moscow, and of Marx Prospekt,Lyubyanka to the Kremlin, long before I foundThat wide dark boulevard descending toward the winter dusk

See what has not happened? But it has, I think.

Now in hand the sky’s fleece-covered maulOf thunder beats against a darkened atmosphere,Beats the skin until a storm bears down -Fierce sub-tropical assaulting swells the groundProud wounds release the forest from the soil

And death will be torn out by root and fist

I also see three greyhounds standing in a lineTo run a race – the line-up of the three -One the hound Survival, fawn and sleek,The second, dark, is Death, with snowy muzzle,Third is red and brindle – she’s the puzzle

Will you wager on the winner? Can you see?


315


HOLY PRAISE

Black as lines of window leadBut velvet with a velvet dust

Yellow as the sun that climbsChrome that turns to yellow glass

Window on a minor scaleThe resting tiger swallowtail

Born this day in mid-JulyThe holy praise of God can fly


316


TREE OF LIFE

Let’s all put our goals for the year in this boxOn a long piece of paper, one and another

In a year we’ll meet, and see where we’ve got toHer ashes were scattered from a china vessel

Her goals, her goals, her life-long goalsWhat are the goals of the ashen dead?

In an urn of pumice, in a small fine boxOn the waves of a lake where they bob and swim

I send you a secret that you must read…See what is written at the end of a year

The body must go where the warm wind blowsAnd the soul must sleep in the winter snowsAnd the soul and the body grow out to the limbWhen the tree of life has grown up to Him


317


THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS

As those rough shepherds did before the Holy Child(Scarred legs, snagged teeth, frost-bite stung)So before the Blessed Sacrament we kneel,Though less we bring, though less we bring

Not with love’s astonishment enoughNor with generous belief and unreservedAdoring, marveling, pure bliss,The less we serve, the less we serve

And yet He is the same, the same new bornHope and resurrection, unspoiled light,Untouched as yet by jealousy and scorn,Loved still with reverent delight, with reverent delight

The same, the same, who in the tabernacle lives,Who was adored by those rough men and plain,Who by the flesh was given up and killed,Who by the life of Him remains, remains


318


DAVID AND SAUL

Like a round silver nimbusThe orb of a spiderShines in the sun

Anchored it glistensRound as a diskThat music is stored on

Concentric the spiralsAs if by a compassWith ruler-straight radials

If a saint stood beneath itNo finer a haloCould seraphim fit

If David could strumThe silk of the stringsKing Saul would succumb


319


SUMMER STORM

A dead white flash in the bedroom window,Black glass explodes, a storm arrivesIn a roar of rain against the pavement,On the grass like the tearing of sailors’ canvas

The sound I heard of a rocket fallingShot from the Cape to the western Atlantic,The tearing of air and molecules bursting,Ripping their bonds, and the spurting metal

Changed to the blooms of glassy flowersDrawn from the running swell of the waves,Flowers or funnels of white spun glassRaised from the furious sterilized sea

A nuclear flash, white hot, blue whiteOn the window pane on a summer night,And the prescient fear of another stormRolling in waves from the nearest future

But the storm is rain, and solid wavesOf gusting torrents seethe on the asphalt


320


PREDATORS

Little brown dove on the telephone wireBeware the sharp-shinned hawk above you!Down below the cats’ desireTo snatch you up and rend and eat you!

Little white dove down through the windowGlide on sunlight, ivory dove,No cat or hawk can intercept you,Wings of truth and faith and love

Only the innocent understood:Two little doves sat side by side,One was killed for her flesh and bloodAnd one esteemed a virgin bride

Mourn the dove of earth and water,Mother, sister, wife and daughter,Mourn the other who felt pangsOf talons tearing, claws and fangs


321


THE MOTOR IS RUNNING

There will be destruction enough to appall the devil (Always jealous of Man’s retributive rage) —A DC patrol car stops a tarp-covered truck,Under the dark black top there is no recovering

When delivering crates of soft drinks the deliverer leavesHis keys in the idle position, the cab unattended—Five minutes with nobody there is more than enoughTime to drive it away: the motor is on

How radioactive is a nuclear weapon?Ted Taylor, who made them, has said you can sleep on one—How large is a city destroyer? A plutonium nose coneFits in the back of the average soft-drink truck

How many trucks in a day deliver soft drinks?How many people are filled with retributive rage?Please read the Teamsters’ contract, Local 160:The truck may be running, the keys in the idle position

Why may the keys be left in the idle position?The driver has money and needs to get away quickly—How many trucks in a day deliver soft-drinks?What about pineapple candy, cake and cold beer?

The mode operandi is banal, what else could it be?Fatigue of the mind is caused by what you can see


322


THE FALCONER’S JESS

The old woman’s got a swollen foot, and she shows it,Pale tan of skin and bare of foot, the gypsy witchLess than a thousand yards from the White House sitsOn a dirty brown box – her fat ankles itch

I come from Rumania, do you know Rumania, hey!Don’t go away, come over here, give me a twenty dollar bill,I can tell you the fate of the world todayFor I come from the house of death and I look past the window sill

I come from Rumania and I’ve drunk the black wine of Banat,But here I wait with a swollen foot—Give me a twenty to feed my black cat,You who pass by in your thousand dollar suit

A kerchief on my head and a long cotton dressBoth are the color of dust, red-brown,But on my fat wrist is a falconer’s jessAnd the hawk is away to hunt the doves of the town

My hawk will hunt and my cat will hissAnd the crowd on the street will be led astray,For the hawk will return with the dove of peaceIn its claws and the cat of war will feather the dove and flay


323


THE GUARDIAN

The taxi driver turned away from the windshieldOf a yellow cab that through all objects flowed,He turned aside and yet from harm was shielded,He turned away, his eyes away from the road

Pleasant mannered, large – what was his name?He spoke of an orchard yard, two tallest trees,One that produced the bitter-sweet of shameOne that abolished Man’s mortality

He turned from the wheel, hands off, the cab rolled on,Passed of itself through other cars and people,The Spirit of God the Father, God the SonHarmless went through human good and evil

The meter showed us years instead of cashAnd up ahead a house, the end, and past


324


THE HAND-OUT

A symbol at curbside, the Spirit of Man,Sidewalk tobacco explodes in his lips,But such as he gets he gets where he can,The street in the sun, the grass where he naps

White are the scabs that cover his skinThe lepers of Christ were likely as vileBut his is the diet of dumpsters, and gin:The verminous crust that covers denial

Syllables wordless or pneumonic gusts,Cringing and whining he raises his handsTo a level below his whistling chest:A handful of change for the Spirit of Man

Where are the words? Where is his tongue?A part of the brain that’s missing can’t speak—Is it the nicotine tone of his lungs?Is it a blessing on us of the meek?

Object of charity, pity, disgust,Alcohol-blasted, pathetically sly,Half-witted, hideous, scorned by the just,There by all righteousness never go I

But still I suspect on the sapphire roadWhere Earth is the curbstone and heaven the cityThat we will be helpless and pitiful, GodTo the Spirit of Man will show mercy and pity


325


SOMEONE

You are poorFor the Lord has created out of nothingA green palace with golden windowsTo which He invites With beckoningBut you must be poorTo be His guest

But hush!How silent it isWhen a thrush stops thrillingAnd a fly stops humming—Someone’s coming!


326


AUGUST 6, 1945

O my soul, created to enjoy such exquisite gifts, what are you doing, where is your life going? How wretched is the blindness of Adam’s children, if indeed we are blind to such a brilliant light and deaf to so insistent a voice. – St. John of the Cross

The Day of Christ’s TransfigurationHiroshima: ObliterationLove’s unending deathless dayWar’s delirious displayGrace of glory praised aloudAn ionizing mushroom cloudVisions of the mortal blessedEyes of death made manifestThe hill of Golgotha foretoldAdam’s skull made manifold

Expedience of war or stateDeath our character, our fateCross of wood or bombing planeThe blood of Abel, mark of CainLight from light the Son of GodRevealed beneath His flesh and bloodLight unsullied and unbrokenOf which our sunlight is a tokenDisfiguration of the soulTransfigure, Lord, and make us whole


327


WATER STRIDER

A ribbon stream that falls and fritters,Modest ruffles, golden sandOn which an insect shadow skitters—Little feet as if on land

Peter walk, Peter outNever mind that strange adhesion, Surface tensions God’s to flout—He stiffens and He breaks suspension

Why the independent fear?Peter in a fearful stateHeel by toe you shuffle near,Then you sink by your own weight

Look at all My miracles—Dragonfly and diving spider,Though you have no spiraclesEmulate the water strider


328


EACH TO EACH

Five sparrows hopping by the roadsideWhat must be done to undo evil?A brown doe followed by two fawns—Sufficient now this hour’s evil

May-hatched mantids climb through hazel—Gunshots in a midnight alley,An orb web weaver spins mandalas—Men unspin their unborn babies

Now moves to prime the summer woodGreen the tall unleaning lords,Impassive dignity and strengthPulled to dusk a shadow’s length

Yet within each Adam’s eyeSome alien resentment liesWhen it beholds the holy peaceOf Sunday forests, wordless beasts


329


HOURS

A stabber crow stands in the streetBigger than the other crowsRaven chest and spreading feetA beak that’s built for dealing blows

Judas’ children, children’s childrenCome and join the flock with me,Day is over, night is fallenVictory! Croak victory!

Come to feed inside the tombsThat used to shelter living souls,Marry life and death the groomScrape their children into holes

Now the night from which I hatchedBecomes the roundel of the sky,All the arrows that were fletchedWith my black feathers fly – they fly!

Now the tree of life is cutLies across the stream Gihon,Rivers run with burning fatFrom altars in the sacred garden

The crows, the crows, the Judas birdsFlew incited overhead,Every tomb that opened upFlapped again around the dead

Zenith to horizon closed,Midnight wings enveloped all;Beyond, above, a daylight rose:Demons of the night must fall

Who can see the morning next?Yet the star of morning shinesAnd all of sorrow is annexedTo lauds and matins and compline


330


PASSAGE

“Then is it not the fear of greater evils which makes the brave endure death, when they do?” —Plato, trans. W. H. D. Rouse

Who can speak of what he doesn’t know?So when I think of death I know it wellNot the end itself but the beginning—The door is here, the passage lies beyond

On this summer night I see a streetStrange cities too, as often closed as not,The city of archangels and a riverNorth and west of Moscow were disclosed

Further on the Solovetsky IslandsThe angels were expelled, the ferried deadCarried like the passengers of CharonWeakly spirits to the underworld

There the devil built an asphalt roadAnd told the damned to make it level, smooth—“And fill it full of vodka to the brim

“Then I’ll drive a hundred meters on—If a single drop is spilled you’ll die.”All of us are working in this world,And all of us will spill what we have filled

Pavel ChichikovAugust 2005

331


JEREMIAH 32.35

A visitor from somewhere, from elsewhere, but from where?The inner eye, the inner brain, phantasmas of the airA manikin, an overcoat too heavy for a summerA beard, a hat that slouches down, onyx eyes that glitter

Small and fierce and silent, a cudgel in his fistA sentinel of nothing, a William o’-the-wispA small pathetic victim of delusions of the soulBut even in the August sun he flowers like a coal

Never speaks, never moves, but stares at some recoilOf consequence, catastrophe, apocalypsis-loyal,Though a petty madman, he summons up a fearOf nameless retribution, reprisal drawing near

There’s something he uncovers by only standing stillSomething that has happened, or happens now, or willSomething we remember, something that we should,But long has been forgotten that now we come to dread

Was it Jeremiah who seemed to us as madWhen shouting from the hill his moloch-Jeremiad?


332


A FAVOR GRANTED

The wheelchair woman, twisted one,Sat alone when Mass was done,A gift to me to see her thereAnd wheel her to the cripples’ car

Great favor and great fortune given:

To serve for nothing, honor-blind,That no one knows an ecstasy,But if they must to stay behindAnd grasp the handles, nameless be

She herself, her faith was greatTo not call out, to know and wait,Happiness for me to ask,Receive a gift, a honeyed task

Great happiness and favor given


333


“THEN SHALL ALL THE TREES OF THE FOREST EXULT…”—Psalm 96

All of us are there, but first of all the fewInside this little chapel, fifty souls or so,Beneath His holy table, as all of us were inThe simple upper room, the Lord, the two and ten

Doors again surrender, now the live and deadGather in the chapel, from grave and heaven ledTo fit our four dimensions, a modest chamber wideEnough for generations, praising Him inside

Woodland trees rejoice, speechless ancient trees,Stand in adoration, your majesty your praise;All you creatures living, invisible and greatActivity your worship, rightness is your fate

Luminous round sky, faithful stars in spaceBurn in giving tribute, candles to His face,Even mighty angels, whose wings can cover deathFit within the corners, no greater than their breadth


334


EATEN ALIVEFor B. L.

Wolves that eat a reindeer calf don’t waitUntil the calf is dead—why should they?They have no pity for a yearling’s fate—Eat or die, be eater or be prey

As once I stood in Pushkin Square the nightBefore the Persian war—the snow beganTo turn the hair of all the people white—Wolf to wolf is Man destroying Man

The dreaming wolf has blood between his teeth,But we can dream of alleys, journeys on a train,Of runners fleeing, running out of breath—Man subtracting wolf—what does remain?

We will turn white, with blood between our teeth,Each set of ears two arrows standing upTo catch the sound of bleating, and the breathOf calves will fill the nostrils of our whelps

Hands subtracting teeth, this question will remain—Why should a yearling die, a bullet in the brain?What is this human lust for corpses without meatTo fill our children’s bellies—so let them eat

And question nothing, words are not for wolves—They are always lawful, and yet they have no selves


335


THE DEER PARK

I may not see the people, yet the deer,Green-crowned hill surmounted by a tower,Gold and yet not gold that I draw near,Tower more than time and world together

Try to see the top, it rises furtherTakes the light within and will restore,Deer that graze have glorified the Father,Lift their eyes to see Him and adore

Tower of the Lord, the hill, the green,Graze the deer, the doe, the stag and fawn;Hill of God and tower I have seen,World alone, it never will be gone

What to leave behind to see that hill,Mount the slope of green to see the glory?Leave behind the passions and the will,The light is God, the blindness purgatory


336


THE CACHE

On the forest floor uncoveredRed gold pennies, sunlight-matter,Treasure which no hand can gatherWealth unburied, light refracted

Coinage of descending sunlightSpendthrift God who leaves such plunderTaken from a hoard of wonderGleaming in the velvet dusk

Mint these circles, for the moment,Light the face, His image printed,Opulence and joy unstinted,Gift of glory, eyeward given

Now unsparing payment fades,Every coin has melted downTo be with night dissolved as one—Such love elsewhere by Love is paid

Let us go where such a serviceIn the praise of Love is givenRecompense of joy in heaven—Here is dross and there is grace


337


TRINITY

Swallowtails, the pond is slackTrinity, their bodies black,Midnight on their gracious flanks,Shift and graze the golden banksWings of yellow, ancient windowsNuzzled in angelic meadows

Calm and clear as should be prayer,Peaceful, in the sunlight bare,Needful not to ask for more, Pond at peace their metaphorPond beneath a falling streamClear as undiscovered dreams

These be our analogySwallowtails the Trinity


338


THE ART OF LOVE

Again I see that floating downward(Gabriel of splendid wings)Brocade of mass but weightless wouldBe this archangel, footless rungs

Massive yet inertialessThat would be free to move beneathBy will of God but free confessThe Father’s love at Mary’s feet

Unsorrowed is the virgin heartBy sin or consciousness of sinWhose welcome is a loving artOf happiness, a world regained

And when they meet there is but sheUnless the art of love can see


339


SERGEI YUFIT (1926 – 2004)

Running down the beach at Lopshenga, White Sea,To collect the fat livers of dioxined fish—Lighting a candle in the church near LyubyankaAs he did for his friends, although no believer

God is in this room I said, and he staredFor surely a madman would say such things—Professor and chemist of chlor-organic compoundsYou lived, had a conscience, battled with poisons

Battled as St. George, who fought with a dragonThough here it was Khimprom, at Ufa, BashkortistanWhere the river broke through to the place where they keptThe dragon’s saliva that burns the enwombed

Sergei, last year, you died a knight errantAcademician, chemist, and you lived through StalinWith your soul unfouled—may you light more candlesIn the church of heaven as you praise God’s mercy

As you praise God’s mercy, for the friends you encandledAre there and here – let us pray for each other


340


ALL EXECUTIONS ARE ALIKE

I saw them cut the head of John the BaptistThe Pushkin jail the place of executionOn the wall a sword of silver pigmentHeld extended, held suspended, swung

The headsman was a youth with supple armsJohn the Baptist young but in his prime,Gaunt from living desert-wise and swarmsOf locusts burned the ichor of his eyes

And I know another Herod dungeonWhere spurting arteries have also bled,It might be at Yasenovo or elsewhere,No blade this time but seven grams of lead

The sacrificial victim was no prophetAnd neither was he sentenced by a king,No dancing girl demanded execution,No Age of Consolation did he bring

And yet it is the same, a dying stateDevours what it can no longer save,As Uranus his seven children ateSo meaningless the hungry, hasty grave

Useless was the corpse, a devil’s devil,Drinking buddy, confidant and friend,Lead-beheaded by another corpseThat didn’t know it was a corpse—the end


341


BEARS

The two of them, high-boned, slack-chopped bearsBurst through my dream and here they are,They move with the loose-jointed buoyancyOf the fearless large-limbed predator

Their heads are as high as our human belliesBroad as ditch-digging shovels of steel,Though you would think they would fade in lightTheir breath is warm as their eyes are real

A victim, a victim, something to eat,It’s only a dog that’s gripped and crushed,A soundless kill, no snap or snarl,No noise but the scrush of calloused feet

One made the kill as the other watched,The truth of the dream and illusion clash,Fur dark brown with the streak of lightOf the blonde horizon, end of night


342


STORM ARRIVING

From the southeast driven cloudsNorthwest is the lightning flashWhen the two of these convergeArchangels of the night will clash

They have room to clap and stormLight and wind, rain and fireTumult underneath is warmBolts of ice are burning wire

Wing on wing, spear on spearThey will set to and twist aboutUntil the crown of midnight wearA diadem of thunder-shouts

Those who think the storm far offWill be confounded by surpriseTo see Saint Michael raise his staffAnd dash the stars in Satan’s eyes


343


CAIN BURIES ABEL

American Burying Beetle, NicrophorusAmericanus, night of wing and head,Orange-flashed, industrious and lustrous,Finds and moves and holes the tiny dead

Mouse or rat or bird, or even toad—Today we saw them swarm a chickadee,Shift the corpus on an asphalt road,Actuated mud of yesterday

Made the body seem as if it stirred,Braced their backs and moved it with their legs,Bristle-foot conveyors of the bird,Puppet-masters fending for their eggs

Let them find a softness, excavateUntil the corpse they’ve captured sinks belowThe level of the humus—mate and mateLay their ova fertilized to grow

Loveless strong respecter of the slain,User of the silent you have found,Nicrophorus not at all like Cain Whose brother’s blood cries murder from the ground


344


MARTHA LISTENS TOO

In the days of Noah, the flood crept up the walls,Giants were unworried: “Not tall as we are tallThe rising of the ocean, the climbing of the rains,Tides may come and go, the empire remains.”

Here are two old ladies walking up the road,Both were army nurses, retired sisterhood,A Captain and a Major, veterans of wars,Calamities before us, receded from the shore

Mary then, and Martha, universal types,Sister, niece or mother, ancestors perhaps,They have seen the deluge, the crucifixion hill,Know of Abel’s sacrifice, that angry Cain can kill

Sometimes Mary listened, sometimes Martha cleaned,Wisdom gives instruction, stupidity must win—Now September’s summer, lengthy grow the shadows,Now a rumble sounding, the cobalt zenith trembles

Now the two old ladies stroll beneath the trees,Hickory and poplar, shortened grow the days,Mary turns to Martha, Martha listens too—Hear the deeper rumble, the zenith trembles blue


345


ALIVE

A swallowtail flies upA cherry leaf falls downThistle purple-redBerry bushes brown

Early fall this yearLong September aislesWander without fearWinter in a while

Walnuts on the branchGreen the heavy shellsRipenings advanceOne beneath that fell

Furious the beesThat press upon the hiveSing before the freezeAlive! Alive! Alive!


346


LIVE NOW…

Outside the theater all is wellThe traffic of the stars serene,And there where all the angels dwellThe dark we see and the unseen

But here, inside, the arch and seatsThe apron and the audience,The curtain falls and rises, heatsOf eloquence and false suspense

Cherubs on the ceiling blowTheir plaster trumpets and the godsWho were mere extras of the showDescend in chariots of words

The plot, the scenes, the denouementAre foreordained and yet the castIs free to improvise, presentInterpretations present, past

And there’s a future end to all,The Playwright in the second rowInvisible—the curtain falls—And He has plans for other shows

“Belovèd players, clowns and foolsHeroes of the wooden swords,Queens of tragedy and ghouls,Crooked businessmen and lords

“Down the props, the flats, the lightsFor all is well and shall be well,Opening are other nightsAnd I have other plays to tell

“This little theater, little playThe object of a greater EyeHas said whatever it can say—Live now, live now, and never die”


347


BEGIN AGAIN

My winged defender squirts me with the waterOf stoup and baptism, but from a hose,The conduits of kitchen sink and showerMake sufficient paradigm of those

“Be quick, be quick, the other souls depart,”The holy water glances off my arms,For I am not enough disposed at heartTo leave behind the souvenirs of harm

“Leave them, leave them, heaven is the Son,Carry nothing but your faith’s delight.”Too late, too late, the other souls are gone—Whims of day are warnings of the night

Guardian, my watcher and my friend,The street and I am lost, begin again


348


DO NOT LOOK BACK

A dark, dense body, massive as the sunApproaches from the sun’s ecliptic, edgesIts round shoulder into shadows of Saturn

Causality and time by mass are knotted, twistAnd by the small sphere time itselfRuns thick and forms by shape concentric fists

A visitor, intruder, but from where?Coincidence collides with false ancestral logic—No longer is time’s generation linear

Three nights the sky itself will darken, flashAnd love will dance with death a forward step,Then part and go aside from Man’s death wish

And then although the floor of reason crackThe faithful will ascend toward light, escapeFrom darkened gulfs beneath—will not look back


349


LITANY

Mountains beggared on their knees,Plead for pity with the seasJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Forests cower, feel the windsWhip their bones beneath our sinsJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Rivers stretch themselves full lengthAsk the failing of our strengthJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Hunters of dominion snareThe feral sky by loss of prayerJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Lose the courage of the snowsDenying that Christ fell and roseJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Skin the plain of bread with thirstPlow deception, reap a curseJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Call the devils of the droughtSowing blasphemy and doubtJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Christ have mercy, let us turnBefore the fertile valleys burnJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Christ of seasons show Your faceTo Adam’s heedless, thieving raceJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners

Underneath the harvest treeThe children of simplicityJesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners


350


SIGNATURES(after C. S. Lewis)

Who sees the dove fly up Hide within the treeHas seen from the corruptLive Christ’s liberty

For as the dove ascendsDelicate and pureLife without an endDesigns its signature

That which we have seenHiding in the leaf,Joy that never wanesLove departing grief

Clouds across the sunThe literate can say,Read and you have knownHow the wordless pray


351


THE WAR OF ENVY

It was the darkness burst to morbid flameEvil-eyed and hooking enviousBut sunlight too sometimes, the yellow faunBecame a solid, evil and untremulous

Beneath the stairs, for once, where through the glassOf narrow windows toolsOn hooks for work and mowing of grassIn sunlight were death’s artificial symbols

A yawning as my far-off friend has saidAppeared in underlight and stretched,Leaned forward, grimaced as it did at bedA face, cold rage unvisionably dressed

From childhood we have fought the unfaced thingUnnamed and yet by combat’s power knewHow war against the good of life may springFrom either day or night, and it may grow

Assume a density, a spite’s desireOpposite to light but using light as coverWar and war of life against dark fireAnd still the war of envy is not over

But we have learned a thing or two since then—God’s innocence and glory is our friend,And we ourselves more powerful than weHad known ourselves—to use the light to see

Pavel ChichikovSeptember 2005

352


I MET MADNESS…(after Thomas Hardy)

I met madness walking down the road,His arm supported by an angel’s hand,I do no more than what a wolf may doBut angels walk beside a poor madman

I met age, debility unminded,Wandering from road to roadless wood,But though its daft meander was so blinded Beside the old man seven angels stood

Seven angels, lights of seven candles,Rafters of the forest they upheld,Though all the woodlands of the world be endlessNone go lost, the roaring shadows stilled

You will meet and I will meet these seven,At either side they sentinel the bridgeThat crosses from the burning wood to heaven,Above the foul stream of sacrilege


353


FACES WAKING

The book of verse slips out of hand, I readNo more of Wessex and the waking dead,The straddled centuries of Hardy find,In sleep unsleeping, burial in his mind

Of my own dead drowse I, uncle gone,Who force-marched through New Guinea, fighting on,And of another uncle from BerlinWho fought his battles Unter den Linden

Then from a street in Spandau changed addressBecause of visits made by the SS,And landed in New Orleans from a freighter,Returned to see his family much later

Find me now the men who were so fullOf blood to live when we were children still,Adventures had they, now we are too oldTo be as they were young, who sleep-in cold

And of their women too I see the touchThat memory paints in with dilute brush,Some outlasted husbands, some did not—Left to be a thought of fond regret

I see them now together, their New YearTheir cards and gossip snowbound and their beer,And how my uncle and my father wentFor more to drink and found a cop instead

And more, God bring them light out of the shade,That tunnel-swallowed by-road where they fade,And let their faces spring to life from sleepAs now I wake their memories


354

THE RETURN … · Web viewBut critics will maintain, the recent word “comrade” isn’t even...

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