which now is closed in clouds. And like a bird,
his soul is pure, and his life’s path on earth,
although it needs must wind through sin,
is still closer to nature than that tall crow’s nest
which soars above the starlings’ empty homes.
Like some great bird, he too will wake at dawn;
but now he lies beneath a veil of white,
while snow and sleep stitch up the throbbing void
between his soul and his own dreaming flesh.
All things have sunk in sleep. But one last verse
awaits its end, baring its fangs to snarl
that carnal love is but a poet’s duty —
spiritual love the essence of a priest.
Whatever millstone these swift waters turn
will grind the same coarse grain in this one world.
For though our life may be a thing to share,
who is there in this world to share our death?
Man’s garment gapes with holes. It can be torn,
by him who will, at this edge or at that.
It falls to shreds and is made whole again.
Once more it’s rent. And only the far sky,
in darkness, brings the healing needle home.
Sleep, John Donne, sleep. Sleep soundly, do not fret
your soul. As for your coat, it’s torn; all limp
it hangs. But see, there from the clouds will shine
that Star which made your world endure till now.
Nunc Dimittis[200]
When Mary first came to present the Christ Child
to God in His temple, she found – of those few
who fasted and prayed there, departing not from it —
devout Simeon and the prophetess Anna.
The holy man took the Babe up in his arms.
The three of them, lost in the grayness of dawn,
now stood like a small shifting frame that surrounded
the Child in the palpable dark of the temple.
The temple enclosed them in forests of stone.
Its lofty vaults stooped as though trying to cloak
the prophetess Anna, and Simeon, and Mary —
to hide them from men and to hide them from Heaven.
And only a chance ray of light struck the hair
of that sleeping Infant, who stirred but as yet
was conscious of nothing and blew drowsy bubbles;
old Simeon’s arms held him like a stout cradle.
It had been revealed to this upright old man
that he would not die until his eyes had seen
the Son of the Lord. And it thus came to pass. And
he said: ‘Now, O Lord, lettest thou thy poor servant,
according to thy holy word, leave in peace,
for mine eyes have witnessed thine offspring,
he is thy continuation and also the source of
thy Light for idolatrous tribes, and the glory
of Israel as well.’ Then old Simeon paused.
The silence, regaining the temple’s clear space,
oozed from all its corners and almost engulfed them,
and only his echoing words grazed the rafters,
to spin for a moment, with faint rustling sounds,
high over their heads in the tall temple’s vaults,
akin to a bird that can soar, yet that cannot
return to the earth, even if it should want to.
A strangeness engulfed them. The silence now seemed
as strange as the words of old Simeon’s speech.
And Mary, confused and bewildered, said nothing —
so strange had his words been. He added, while turning
directly to Mary: ‘Behold, in this Child,
now close to thy breast, is concealed the great fall
of many, the great elevation of others,
a subject of strife and a source of dissension,
and that very steel which will torture his flesh
shall pierce through thine own soul as well. And that wound
will show to thee, Mary, as a new vision,
what lies hidden, deep in the hearts of all people.’
He ended and moved toward the temple’s great door.
Old Anna, bent down with the weight of her years,
and Mary, now stooping, gazed after him, silent.
He moved and grew smaller, in size and in meaning,
to these two frail women who stood in the gloom.
As though driven on by the force of their looks,
he strode through the cold empty space of the temple
and moved toward the whitening blur of the doorway.
The stride of his old legs was steady and firm.
When Anna’s voice sounded behind him, he slowed
his step for a moment. But she was not calling
to him; she had started to bless God and praise Him.
The door came still closer. The wind stirred his robe
and fanned at his forehead; the roar of the street,
exploding in life by the door of the temple,
beat stubbornly into old Simeon’s hearing.
He went forth to die. It was not the loud din
of streets that he faced when he flung the door wide,
but rather the deaf-and-dumb fields of death’s kingdom.
He strode through a space that was no longer solid.
The rustle of time ebbed away in his ears.
And Simeon’s soul held the form of the Child —
its feathery crown now enveloped in glory —
aloft, like a torch, pressing back the black shadows,
to light up the path that leads into death’s realm,
where never before until this present hour
had any man managed to lighten his pathway.
The old man’s torch glowed and the pathway grew wider.
Odysseus to Telemachus
My dear Telemachus,
The Trojan War
is over now; I don’t recall who won it.
The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave
so many dead so far from their own homeland.
But still, my homeward way has proved too long.
While we were wasting time there, old Poseidon,
it almost seems, stretched and extended space.
I don’t know where I am or what this place can be.
It would appear some filthy island,
with bushes, buildings, and great grunting pigs.
A garden choked with weeds; some queen or other.
Grass and huge stones… Telemachus, my son!
To a wanderer the faces of all islands
resemble one another. And the mind
trips, numbering waves; eyes, sore from sea horizons,
run; and the flesh of water stuffs the ears.
I can’t remember how the war came out;
even how old you are – I can’t remember.
Grow up, then, my Telemachus, grow strong.
Only the gods know if we’ll see each other
again. You’ve long since ceased to be that babe
before whom I reined in the plowing bullocks.
Had it not been for Palamedes’ trick
we two would still be living in one household.
But maybe he was right; away from me
you are quite safe from all Oedipal passions,
and your dreams, my Telemachus, are blameless.
The Butterfly
Should I say that you’re dead?
You touched so brief a fragment
of time. There’s much that’s sad in
the joke God played.
I scarcely comprehend
the words «you’ve lived»; the date
of your birth and when you faded
in my cupped hand
are one, and not two dates.
Thus calculated,
your term is, simply stated,
less than a day.
It’s clear that days for us
are nothings, zeros.
They can’t be pinned down near us
to feed our eyes.
Whenever days stand stark
against white borders,
since they possess no bodies
they leave no mark.
They are like you. That is,
each butterfly’s small plumage
is one day’s shrunken image —
a tenth its size.
Should I say that, somehow,
you lack all being?
What then, are my hands feeling
that’s so like you?
Such colors can’t be drawn
from nonexistence.
Tell me, at whose insistence
were yours laid on?
Since I’m a mumbling heap
of words, not pigments,
how could your hues be figments
of my conceit?
There are, on your small wings,
black spots and splashes —
like eyes, birds, girls, eyelashes.
But of what things
are you the airy norm?
What bits of faces,
what broken times and places
shine through your form?
As for your nature mortes:
do they show dishes
of fruits and flowers, or fishes
displayed on boards?
Perhaps a landscape smokes
among your ashes,
and with thick reading glasses
I’ll scan its slopes —
its beaches, dancers, nymphs.
Is it as bright as
the day, or dark as night is?
And could one glimpse —
ascending that sky’s screen —
some blazing lantern?