Motionless. Still. Erect. Always
its truth, its rigid forbidding mood.
No time to look out and rejoice
in what one sees in it. Once, I remember,
as the flaming feathers of a dawn
bobbed through stubborn suns into a far skyline,
I thought maybe I might reach it,
but the skyline did not last long.
Sudden darkness burned it out: the awful spirit
that ruled our bones burnt our sacred gods,
turned our fathers’ names to ash.
The sod hut of truth stood its ground,
where last summer fields of mustard floated
in the haze. Now what I see
might be half right, and like my room
this truth seems alive with its branded moves.
Has it told the old widow with the epileptic fit
to shuffle down the crowded road, showing
her blackened teeth, to lead me to my room, blind?
And the passersby to throng the diseased girl
who sits still and unmoving in the marketplace,
one full breast peering through
her ragged blouse, while her kindhearted parents
on whom she had turned her back
found it easier for them to meet their death?
No, never like the gentle breeze of a summer’s night;
never never soft and loving
in your eyes as I follow the sunset
till all color drains from sky does it come,
to blind real nature and force
an adverse fate, a fruit, ready to the hand.
All truth is rather like a war.
Making love I chance to get a glimpse
of myself in the mirror, and I
long for another look. Because I cannot
grow a rose, I plant the seeds of the thistle.
So that we could crowd our battles down,
as one swats an injured fly. And I could say:
How can I be ready for life inside?
How could I have become engrossed
in something less crucial to see
finally my whole life pass before me?
How could the shadow
of hidden bones cast by the sun
drive out the iron from my wide open dawns?
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