Dappled Things

In the sharp first flash of the match is our life

Sulfur-snatch bright to blinding but

Burned to the stub in mere seconds.  Burilliant

In time we must make it, but not less the shining beyond.

For here we must live out our candle-life, wick lit and limited

A short cut lenth of waxen line, but

Soon we’ll be charged with the song of the sky,

The shiver that runs through the clouds, son electric

And every where dancing, awaiting its call,

Then the strike!  Shine abrupt, unencumbered.

Fire free of its fuel.  So we’ll be.

Lanterns for now, later lightning.

Some Different Kinds of Rain

The late summer rain almost chuckles

As it cools for an instant then rises

Bid take up its bed by the sun it surrounds me

With damp sick-bed singing and smothers with

Kisses. But winter rain is more aloof.

It syllogizes me with drumming downbeats:

“Will die, dying, dead” and never

Drying beats my head till I agree with it

And wiser pick my way through frozen puddles.

 

But best of all is the cordial bachelor rain

Of April, falling, calling on the streams

In come-a-courting clothes: the silk-worm sunshine.

Until when wed with snow-melt it begins—

As fits a lover—to withdraw impassioned

To its bridal chamber pearled with salt and sand.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

O Lord, I am happy that you are the one who is God

And not someone else. Someone constructed of thoughts and ideas,

A vessel for holding one’s Ultimate Concern,

The sum of the books and the words and the names that describe him.

No! God is you, you are God in your selfness.

The One I’ve known since childhood faith was sprung

Like a joke toy jack-boxed joy-spring in my heart.

You! In the hearthfire, You! in the hedgerow, You!

In the panic of wings, beaks and bodies when pigeons

Fly, scatter, regroup and are settled again

You in, through, behind, all around, under all

And none of it finding an end to you.

Nowhere to say this is He, and no more,

No one to write the last word on the Word.

Oh thank you sweet Christ it is you and no other,

Who contains, completes, fills, fulfills, conquers

And explodes, what I for lack of better words

Name God.

He’s Deadly

There is something in your sweetness that will kill

Like guava seeds or Inuit spears

Slimed in blood and then frozen layer by layer.

The gore hides the snare for the great bear.

Just so there is ought in the center that I say

Will slay me, O Lord, and will lay me

Out on the altar, bound down and offered

Where you yourself lay. And then you

Will be all, yes, the ram, lamb

And Abraham, dying priest

Living father, High King.

You will stretch me out under you,

Mingle our blood and then draw me up,

Draw me like water and pour me out.

All of me drenching the ground

Where life will spring again someday.

And someday you say

We will walk on as friends.

Two dangerous men

Just back from the grave.

The Birds ArriveBy Pablo Neruda (Translated by Seth Morgan)

All was flight in our world

Like drops of blood and feathers

The cardinals bled

The dawn of the Anáhuac.

The toucan was an adorable

Box of varnished fruit,

The hummingbird guarded

The original sparks of the lightning

And their miniscule bonfires

Burned in the immobile air.

The illustrious parrots filled

The profundity of the foliage

Like ingots of green gold

Newly come from the past

Of submerged swamps,

And from from their circular eyes

Watched a yellow ring,

Old as the minerals.

All the eagles of the sky

Nourished their bloody stock

In the inhabited blue

And on their carnivorous feathers

They flew to the top of the world.

The condor, king assassin,

Solitary friar of the sky,

Black talisman of the snow,

Hurricane hawk.

Some Beasts by Pablo Neruda, translated by me

It was the twilight of the iguana

From the crest of the rainbow

His tongue like a dart

Sank itself into the undergrowth

The monasterial anthill tread down

The forest with melodious feet.

The wild boar, fine as the oxygen

In the broad, brown heights

Was putting on wineskins of gold

While the llama opened guileless

Eyes in the delicacy

Of the dew-filled world.

The monkeys braided a thread

Interminably erotic

On the banks of the dawn,

Pulling down walls of pollen

And frightening the violet flight

Of the butterflies of Muzo.

It was the night of the alligators,

The night pure and pululant,

Of snouts sticking out of the mud

And of somnolent marshes

An opaque noise of armor

Returned to the terrestrial origins.

The jaguar played the leaves

With his phosphorescent absence

The puma runs in the branches

Like a devouring fire

All the while they burn in him:

The alcoholic eyes of the forest.

The badgers scrape the feet

Of the river. The scent the nest

Whose palpitating delicacies

They attack with red teeth.

And in the bottom of the magma-water

Like the circle of the earth

Is the gigantic anaconda

Covered in ritual mud,

Devout devourer.

Christ Among the Apple-Trees

“God’s blunders make us fools,” the old man said,

my grinning co-conspirator against

the Lord’s decrees, “that’s what I call ‘em now.

I know He never stumbles, but I think

that He may wink and feign a fall, then catch

Himself and all of us, one hand outstretched

just moments from the great catastrophe.

He died, you know.” “I know,” I said. “But that’s

not all,” he said. “He stayed down in the grave

for three whole days before He showed His face!

What kind of God plays pranks like that?” I shrugged.

“The only kind that’s worth a damn!” he cried

in answer to himself, “and know what else?

He is breaking in again.” He paused for

full effect then leaned in, breathing in my

face, “He’s breaking in, the holy rebel,

the God who died and rose again, the clown

who scattered all the stars and made the earth

and—all but laughing—called it very good.

He’s breaking in! I saw Him yesterday.

Just around the corner in the orchard

brushing dew off morning apples with my

grandsons. He smiled and touched a finger to

His lips so I would know that He will come

for me before the year is out. O come!

O maranatha, dear sweet Christ! I will

be waiting wearing motley, holy fool.

For that is what I meant, you know: that we

must laugh, roll on the floor with worship like

the bleating, baying, barking, begging hounds

for joy that Jesus’ blunders know no bounds.”

And then he stopped, ashamed a bit he looked

around and smiled and walked away. But still

his Christ among the apple-trees remains.

Acts 1

Why stand you staring men of Galilee?

He who is gone will soon return again

To claim His bride and rend this earth’s thin veil.

You’ll drown in floods of glory that will pour

In through the tear, but do not swim: inhale.

Yet while you breathe stale air I leave this charge:

Do not forget what wonder round-about

Encompasses the dry dust path you walk

It will be long, you will not know the way,

But do not be so foolish as to think

That dust is only dust and not what you

Were made of, and man is only man

And not the image of the great unseen.

So finally, go forth and make the change

That even now shakes temples, shudders kings.

Go forth! This world must shatter ere it sings.

Hippomenes’ Song

I guess I thought your breasts would be as gold-

en as your hair. That was my first mistake

O Atalanta, goddess of the chase.

For though we still are running everyday

in nothing but our Nike tennis shoes,

most times we forget to make sweet love—and

that’s the problem don’t you see, I haven’t

got the golden apples anymore, my

Atalanta. But look at that stray glance

of sun fall soft into the valley’s hand.

What, no? It didn’t work, you’re running still,

your eyes fixed on the prize that’s set before,

no time for these distractions that I once

could use to snare you, but then, as I said

I’ve had the wrong idea as well. You don’t

have breasts of gold, or thighs of ivory,

chryselephantine loci of delight.

You are a woman and you run from me

intangible as mist—or should I say

that clouds are as untouchable as you

these days. What gives, my Atalanta dear?

Perhaps if I just wait it’s coming still,

surprisingly lovely and vigorous

nights spent outside at the temple, while priests

Promenade through the columns we glory

In others unknowing and melt and e-

rupt and rejoice. O be near to me now

night of nights, day of days, hour upon hour!

Until then, my Atalanta I will

sing and run, though I will never catch you

Unless you slow, half-listening and think

what joy a tawny lioness may take

with him the goddess made to be her mate.

For Godric

Sometimes O Christ

It seems that you are young,

And you have laughing eyes.

You are a little boy holding a dove

And I chase after you

To take you in my arms.

But you run cheerily away

And I am lame.

At other times it seems that you are old.

Your aged hands will frame my face

And thumb away my tears.

Silently you bear your load of pain

And I embrace you,

But when I close my eyes you turn to ash.

But then there are the times, O Christ—

Perhaps though, only once—

I do not see your age

For I am blind

And deaf and dumb

And I stand silent while you search me,

While you draw me out

And stretch my arms with yours

And I can only feel your hands clasped in my hands

You chest against my chest,

A double cross of dead and living,

Man and God.

And in this way, O Christ

I died, and die, and die.

For Atalanta

Wallace Stevens, burning with the effort

Of four full quatrains,

Straining with rhymes ABBA,

Running with all five feet off the ground,

Could never catch you.

And I’m no Wallace Stevens.

The Death of Cuchulainn

If I could dip my pen in ash,

I’d tell you how he fell at last

How honeyed lips gave bitter sound

To words that cast him to the ground.

O fitful muse I seek your aid

That I might to Cuchulainn pay

The honor that a hero’s due

So sing in me O wayward muse!

For great Cuchulainn’s bitter bane

Came from the doom struck to his name

That always he should take and eat

If any freely offered meat.

So offered they to Culann’s Hound

The beast to which his name was bound.

Three witches blind each in one eye

Contrived to draw the hero nigh

And give him of the fatal meal

Which wounded him that none could heal

For soon as dog-meat touched his lips

He felt his strength begin to slip

The left hand that had held the food

Fell useless at his side as wood

And his left thigh that held the plate

Could barely hold the hero’s weight

O foulest traitresses! He cried

Sent by Queen Medb to soothe her pride

For such as this is like her work

The heavy cloak and hidden dirk.

Her work it was, the haughty queen

Cuchulainn’s enemy unseen

For ever since the Cooley raid

Where single-handed he had made

Her army to retreat at last

From where he stood to guard the pass

She’d hated him above all men

And ever tried to do him in

So cackling flew on raven’s wing

The witches three and thus to sing:

“Cuchulainn here has lost his strength

His star will soon begin to sink

And Lugaid Con Roi’s son will rise

To strike Cuchulain from the skies.”

But though the hero’s left had failed

His right remained still full and hale

And naught would keep him from the field

On that fell day of blood and steel

So called he to his charioteer,

Brave Loeg mac Riangabar,

And bid him to take up the reins

But Loeg’s skill was all in vain.

“She’ll not be handled by my hand,”

Spake Loeg, “nor by any man

For though I’ve never failed thee yet

The faces of the fates are set

Go not to ride today my friend

Go not to aid the Ulster men.”

Cuchulainn though was filled with pride

The battle-gleam was in his eyes

He recked not signs nor portents grim

No augurie could yet sway him

So thus he grasped the horse’s reins

And bid it to his hand be tame

And still it stood but tears of blood

It shed to blacken in the mud.

Despite this last prophetic sign

Brave Loeg took the leather lines

And snapped them at the horses’ backs:

The gray of Macha and the black.

So down the mountain tracks they coursed

To meet them with the Southron’s force.

For soon would Ulster’s men have fled

Had they not seen Cuchulainn’s head,

But soon as he began to fight,

His eyes filled with the battle light,

Then Ulster rallied at his cry

And pressed back Lugaid’s southern tide

Yet still the enemy pressed in

And clashed their spears in mighty din

They numbered near ten thousand strong

And each man raised his voice in song:

A sword against Cuchulainn!

A sword against the Ulster men!

A sword and flame against their land

Let none against the Southron stand!

And at the head strong Lugaid came

Whose father Cuchulainn had slain

Three spears had Lugaid, Con Roi’s son

And it was said of every one

That at the first time each was thrown

They’d strike a king when they struck home

So kept he these until the day

When one would great Cuchulainn slay

And as his men fell in retreat

The son of Con Roi kept his feet

And cast his spear with all his art

Aimed straight at strong Cuchulainn’s heart.

But ere it struck his master dead

The Grey of Macha reared his head

And took the blow that flew to kill

The one man who could hold him still

Then breaking from the reigns he ran

The first king slain by Lugaid’s hand

For of Cuchulainn’s Grey it’s said

That he was king of horses bred

Descended from a royal breed

Of god-like chargers, conq’rers steeds.

So as the Black took all the weight

Cuchulainn’s eyes brimmed o’er with hate

He cast about for Con Roi’s son

But ere the spear had struck he’d run

So then about him left and right

Cuchulainn’s sword swung swift and bright

And from his eyes came like a flood

The warrior-light of rage and blood

But then turned Lugaid once again

And sought Cuchulain ‘mid the din

He drew another long wood shaft

And cast it with a fearsome laugh.

It struck brave Loeg, charioteer

Instead of him that Lugaid feared.

For Loeg was himself a king,

The greatest of all those who sing

Of hard-worn hooves and wind-tossed manes,

Of grinding wheels and pulsing reigns.

O’er all the horsemen did he rule

Until the day when fortune cruel

Did measure out his life’s short thread

And cut him short to join the dead.

So then Cuchulainn raged indeed

And leapt clear of his foaming steed

To search for Lugaid on his own

And pay in full for what he’d done

O’er the din then his voice rang

He wordless raged but then he sang:

A curse I bring on Lugaid!

A curse against cruel Con Roi’s son!

A curse for twice he’s cleft my heart

I’ll have his head despite his art!

But then the hero’s strength gave way

He felt the wound he’d earned that day

When tricked by witches he did eat

Of cursed dog flesh, Queen Medb’s meat.

So then Cuchulainn saw his doom

His short thread cut from fate’s long loom

And then did Lugaid see his chance

To cast his last king-killing lance

He summoned all his vengeful spite

And threw the spear with all his might.

It struck Cuchulainn in his bowels

And spilled out his intestines foul

With trembling hand he clenched his life

And cried out in the dying light

“But let me drink before I die”

So Lugaid’s soldiers waited by

As great Cuchulainn slaked his thirst

His hand still where his bowels burst

Then stumbling toward a standing stone

Stuck from the earth like giant’s bone

He lashed himself up standing straight

So face to face he’d meet his fate

And round him ran his wounded horse

The Grey of Macha’s last full course

Of blood shed for his master’s love

For fifty fell beneath his hooves.

But when the Grey had breathed his last

The warriors gathered round the mast

Where bound Cuchullain’s body stood

His sword still high awaiting blood.

And none would dare approach the man

For all still feared his mighty hand,

Until the omen of the dead,

The raven, settled on his head

Then did young Lugaid venture near

And cried for all of Ulster’s ears:

My spear struck down Cuchulainn!

My spear struck Ulster’s first of men!

Cuchulainn now is in my hands

And Ulster is my conquered land!

Then Lugaid swung his father’s dirk

To finish off the bloody work

And take Cuchulainn’s gory head

As payment for his fallen dead.

But as the blow struck home the sword

Held high saluting Ulster’s shore

Fell sharp and swift on Lugaid’s hand,

His severed sword-arm bloodied sand

And Lugaid in his victory

Lost half his skill that he might be

The last of mortal men to know

The weight of great Cuchulainn’s blow.

And so passed Ulster’s greatest man

The hero who in death still stands

Along the shore in stony sleep

And battles ever with the deep.

Now Cullan’s hound is Cullan’s stone

And seas-edge is his lonely home

See there among the rocky throng

He who began and ends my song.

All hale the great Cuchulainn!

Immortal warrior mortal man!

All hale the dead who cannot die

While we the living give them life!