21

Where Men and Angels Parted

They cried into the gaping night in vain prophesy

where old gods and angels quarreled

about tomorrow’s million millenia present in this now—

such comfort the invulnerable Powers wove:

nets to catch men in.

Other nagging Principles argued endless yesterdays

of cyclic recapitulation endlessly repeated.

But men, like salmon, must ascend

some stream to breed, to live.

Even credulous Dante drew in spirals.

Now suddenly, perfectly envisioned,

returns the witness memory:

Saul, uncertain and defiant, armed like mute angels,

steps into my forbidden tent at Endor

and I (with this same suddenness

remembering still another past) bring into view—

my own view, and thus the king’s—

the shape and pattern of all that Samuel was;

and empowered by libation of my willingness

Samuel speaks.

Saul reported he heard Samuel’s voice.

But I, hearing those words, heard unendurably

the multitudinous cry of all who live and die,

that cry of all men’s years.

Then it was, at that cry,

the shaken, trembling angels fled;

struck us down to mortals and fled in panic;

departed, each one departed, with clash and clang of armor,

beating brazen deafening wings.

And men, hearing their echo down the corridors of time,

made guess of an annunciatory song.