a poem is never finished; only published

Logos

Once there was a language whose sound meant shapes:
Its word for dog leapt up in tail and scrabbling claws,
Its word for feather rocked on the breath that formed it,
Its sun-word scorched the ear that heard.
To speak was to give birth; to shudder forth creation;
To sear the living sky with newborn stars.
To hear was to die, and be reborn
With the new word stamped into the pattern of your veins.
This language, if it is still spoken,
Is whispered in hidden galaxies or the shadows of tree-bark,
And we have only the echoes of words
Left when the forging tongue rolled to silence.
The poet must work from the other end,
From a blade of grass must build a tower
Of shadow-words which, if the time is right,
Will seem to stand up thin, and sharp, and green.


to Scott

Do not think I fancy myself
The keeper of some mystic secret.
I claim no divine clarity:
I know no more than you.
I, like you, have tasted blood
I know the salted nights
Rolling in red and salted skin.
You know as well as I do that this salt will burn away
Leaving– we cannot guess.

Only I feel and name the hidden pulse;
Only I assail the mystery
Which lurks as a panther, black and tearing,
And am cast back, bleeding for presumption;
Only in my blood I must give it a name–
The strongest name I know.
Only I have stood beneath the moon
In a place of windy darkness
And this hit me: that love is white and cold
And burns the flesh off of our reaching fingertips.


The Water's Wide: an expansion

The water's wide beneath my shaking heels;
I'd walk across if I had sainted feet,
But the sun's too bright to see my Savior's face
And echoes of his voice don't firm the waves
Enough to hold me up. I cannot see
Even a shadow of the distant shore
And if I could, what then? I can't get o'er.

And neither have I dreams to lift me up
Above the clouds, to see what there awaits.
The dreams which used to be my fire and food
Are helpless to uplift this heavy flesh.
Awakened, I am earthbound, but compelled
To go where no earth lies to hold my weight.
I cannot swim so far, and this year I
Would need a stronger aid than wings to fly.

Give me a boat, a rocking hollow shell
To intercede for me before the waves;
I do not ask for sails or motor wheel
Only an oarlock, and a place beside
For a companion, who is also bound
For the far island; I could not leave here
Without him, nor would any shore appear
If I set off alone. So bound by you
We'll make our way in one that carries two.

And two will row, in halting stilted time
Hampered by different rhythms, cramped in space
That seems too narrow for us both to move.
And days on end surrounded by flat sea
And dim grey sky, and never more alone
That when I look at you, a stranger here
Though we have rowed for years. And yet my dear,
My shipmate, slowly we will learn our oars,
And more: someday beneath a clearing sky
The shore will welcome home my love and I.