119

Unquartered Sun

Though dawn flower late

the winter sun still rises

and (grappling to the seasons’ habit)

one promises the keening child within

that this snow too is living water,

that spring, wheeling north once more,

will touch the earth,

the human heart

awake.

But now

can I question years of words?

Who answered then?

Who spoke

while whorls of darkness downward whirlpooling

through solid earth

muffled the dream voice between

each drumming shudder

and quicksand beat of heart?

Then invoke this year’s death.

Let sound the muttered syllable.

Now.

Your white hair,

brightening to green under a mysterious sun,

haloes to a moment’s luminous epiphany

against earth’s black pulsate ground,

and I who protest your passage hence

whirl, stop-heart,

and with breaking breath

hold for one shocked instant

the meaning your speech veiled

behind your earth-dark gaze.

Was it for this?—

the steady spin of act,

the constant repetens of spring-bright words,

that pendulum that never paused?

Ezekiel-mad, the unquartered sun

reels wild out of night,

between us hurls green lightening,

sounds once,

is gone….

And my eyes spoken awake in winter

pour life into a fading ghost of grass

undistressed

amid pale wastes of snow.