He can't hold the sun while casting His ostrakon.
He can't hold my son in the glint of His eye. I run
From whom I know not,
But whence I well know: back
To Hell with you I go.
Made low by a lowness brought
And fraught with the catastrophic
Thought, the epiphany that it was He
Who did this to me. Why must you
Wonder anymore? Your ecliptic
Abuser is orbiting closer to home
(You'll quip, "The call is coming from inside
The house!"), more cunning, and on high
Alert to your claims to know
Anything at all. When one suffers,
It is never just one—it's two:
The victim (one) and the witness (you).
But what succor might he offer,
What good at all was Friday
When you brought the nails but forgot
What to do with them? You thought
It would all be so simple: just say
The names of the accused, and we'll handle the rest.
And in the end, you proved Him right:
You drifted off, slept through a night
Of 1,000 suppers shared with guests blessed
By your lithe largesse. It isn't even clear:
Were you even there for the anointing,
For when I dried your feet with my dirty
Hair (well Jaysus, is that what happened, dear)?
I wept alone below olive groves,
And I thanked Him for good brother Bashō,
Who was absolutely correct: go
To the pines to know their gnashing groans.
Weep some more in these woods as well,
Build up your cairns and knock them down,
Scatter the ashes and watch them drown
Amid your barbaric howls. You spit out spells
As you rip limb from limb chewing honey-sap gum.
You raise your arms, a sticky, pale spike of a branch in hand,
And, rising higher, readying the blow to land,
Your ecstatic destruction gets interrupted
By a courting couple chirping out kisses
In the lazing limbs of a black oak's bower.
Demolition's digression delayed for a full hour,
You kiss them back with an echoing call that misses
The meaning but sails on good intentions.
Word gets round in the wood, from black to red oak,
Before red fir to incense cedar spoke,
The ponderosas to sugarpines whispered,
There's a new singer in town, a bardic fella
From far away, maybe he'll stay if we're
On our best behaviour. You load the cart, I'll steer
Us straight on until morning, to that yellowing white
Caught in the clouds and refracted through time.
Throughout the orbit of the Fixed Stars
Passing their way beyond the spheres,
Influencing them in their peerless pearlescence
Simply through movement, through
the highs and lows of being
number one on the way to Empyrean,
Saint Lucy laughs like a golden eagle
over how long it takes you to climb
that mountain with so much clinging
to your back. You laughed, too, because you knew
nothing but the you you are always behind.
Try to catch up again. Turn Him around to see
His face and yours in this forsaken place
where your silent vigil breaks
With howls of laughter with your love.
My Dearest, you said, How did we end
Up so lucky? He can't hold the answer
As he steadies himself against an oak branch bent,
Still lichened by the last of the rains.
A Maundy Coast Camp Fire. Photo by Andrew May, Joanna May, and Freya May.
