84

Above the Bright Eye

If it is to peacock screams that we dance,

stamping on sand a primal alphabet

in faith that chance words spell meaning from chance—

an act hinting some dare divined and met—

still, the bestial cry wrung from the tongue

of peacocks is no music for man’s feet.

Dance rather to the long hum of stars hung

above the bright eye and the brief heartbeat,

deciphering their mythic paralax

as our one clue to alphabet and place.

What meaning can measure find in brute facts

without referent to some grander space?