REFORMATION
I
Underneath the pressed-marble foundations
They have buried the witches,
And in the dark library store rooms,
they have put away
the myth.
Now the dark shape drifts up the
stairs,
Stands on the rostrum, and conjures.
A chain of laughter moves around
the cocktail party,
Light laughter like the clink of
glass and ice
And the jingle of bracelet rings.
The smoke rises between us in a
screen,
And everyone is gay except for
you,
And you are restless and turn away
To look for nothing,
And could not tell me, if I asked
you,
"Why!"
Dante rose out of his grave and
passed a bar.
From the asylum where the air is
a camouflage
And the intimacy impersonal, he
heard Hell's music.
The well dressed lady blushed and
said,
"Would you mind if I call you Father?"
"Not at all, if it helps," he said.
The well dressed lady bowed her
head
And tried to find a way to tell.
When the storm lifts the litter
from the streets
And screams around the buildings
Tearing at the wires and throwing
down the leaves,
When the earth heaves and breaks
itself,
And the sea comes up in a great
hand to slap the land,
The shadow rides upon the water
And contorts his face in lightning
For the pain of another power.
II
In my dreams I run until I am out
there
In the middle of everywhere, Wyoming,
Where a hundred thousand voices
sing the silence,
And clouds as big as giants expand
their chests and roar!
Where there is a stillness in between
For the quiet things that sing
in the smaller amplitudes
And play on the fragile strings,
Where only flowing water passes
never hours
And the undulance and coolness
of the stream
Shares the lovely solitude of dreams.
It is a myth the quiet place.
I waken from the illusion of the
schedule
Into the shelter of the willow,
The soothing moving of the water,
And the warm enclosing arms of
sun.
III
Idumea, Idumea, we have forgotten.
The blur of pigeon wings moves
into the evening,
Following the day into the west,
Dipping under the rose edge of
the gray bowl
And out into the ever-light.
The great eye dims as earth turns
beneath the aperture
And closes away the blue.
Plate-glass windows watch the white
translucence
Change through blue into the crystal
black of night
And sigh into the security of stars.
Idumea, Idumea, we have forgotten.
The shadow hovers down so near
We cannot see. We only feel the
cold, like fear,
Brush past, and wait and play to
pass the time
That's ticking faster than before,
And the dark shape moves from door
to door.
Who knows when it has passed
Or whether we are all dead at last? |