Canto XXXII

—for Adam Ray Wagner

:: the stars, those antelope, grazing in the dark fields
          those eternity meadows so dark
     & the sudden flash of bright flanks fleeing
               the meteor-logic ::

:: the turning-stone the chariots run in rings around
          is the sun doubled, two white stones
     balanced on a black oak’s stump,
               the old advice from father to son is true:
          turn nearest the turning-point, or lose ::

:: & the sickle moon that, as a knife does a ribbon,
          does not cut but curls
     the child’s uncanny locks; the fickle moon
                also cuts the locks 
     of the ever-frayed, never-stayed, curl of waves ::

:: a night watchman, the arbor-lynx opens one green eye
          a dark leaf overhangs the mind
     half-asleep is half awake
               as over the grape hangs the vine ::

****

:: the sun falls down, the gold thread affirms
         the pattern, a little light
     in great darkness, it is the work of no one,
              of no man, of no woman,
          the grass-green bright grammar of the poem :: 

:: pseudo-adam & pseudo-eve, pseudo-noah
         but the dove is real, and so is the flood,
     pseudo-abram, pseudo-isaac, the angel 
               is a question holding a knife,
     but the ash is real, its shroud within the eyes ::

:: the rainbow is when the sunbeam radiant sharp
         cannot cut the dark thickness
     of cloud in two, & the light 
             gathers into itself itself,
     red-purple, purple-red, but dark where the sun has burnt it ::

***

:: & the soul is like a fine mist suspended in air
         bright as a brass shield lit up by the sun
     but every arrow passes through, even the arrow
              that is the sun, the soul
         woundless or it is all wound ::

:: & lightning is when time cancels its kingdom
        when dark clouds wild with wind
     blow themselves apart, the mind splits in two
               at the splendor, the eye is
          a dark hole made the sudden bright grave ::

**

:: & in most matters I agree with my teachers
     adding only this about the sea:
that struck by oars 
          the water gleams ::

*

CODA

[Go slow, genius. Work your lightning through the sand. 
[Make the mind the glass pattern, the fragile proof you passed through.
[Hold the fulgurite page in hand and ask if the pattern resolves the facts.
[Can the poem rescue from himself the man.

****

[Inner depth becomes star-knit surface. Becomes a useless map of Rome.
[You expected a man. You found fragments. 
[It’s a fact as old as rabbit ears. You are the one you fear.

***

[A poem could learn to cherish error. To make error cohere
[Who falls asleep while answering the question.

**

[There can be such—communication—in silence.