246 Spiritual poems

When the body wishes to speak, she will reach into the night and pull back the rapture of  this growing root which has little faith in the other planets of the universe, knowing only one, by the bulbs of the feet, their branching of toes. But the feet have walked with the bones of their ancestors over long trails leaving behind the roots of forests. They walk on the ghosts of all that has gone before them, not just plant, but animal, human, the bones of even the ones who left their horses to drink at the spring running through earth’s mortal body which has much to tell about what happened that day. When the body wishes to speak from the hands, it tells of  how it pulled children back from death and remembered every detail, washing the children’s bodies, legs, bellies, the delicate lips of the girl, the vulnerable testicles of  the son, the future of my people who brought themselves out of the river in a spring freeze. That is only part of  the story of  hands that touched the future. This all started so simply, just a body with so much to say, one with the hum of  her own life in a quiet room, one of the root growing, finding a way through stone, one not remembering nights with men and guns nor the ragged clothing and broken bones of my body. I must go back to the hands, the thumb that makes us human, but then don’t other creatures use tools and lift what they need, intelligent all, like the crows here, one making a cast of earth clay for the broken wing of  the other, remaining until it healed, then broke the clay and flew away together. I would do that one day, but a human can make no claims better than any other, especially without wings, only hands that don’t know these lessons. Still, think of  the willows made into a fence that began to root and leaf, then tore off the wires as they grew. A human does throw off   bonds if  she can, if  she tries, if  it’s possible, the body so finely a miracle of  its own, created of  the elements and anything that lived on earth where everything that was still is.

Wanting leads to worse than oddity. The bones creak like bamboo in wind, and strain toward a better life outside the body, the life anything has that isn’t human. Feel the chair under you? What does it want? Does lust bend it silly, like a rubber crutch? Tell a tree about the silky clasp of cunt. It won’t shift an inch. It won’t ache to touch. Let me not cruise for teens in a red sports car, or glare too long at what bubbles their clothes. Let me never hustle file clerks in a bar. Keep me from the beach when the hot wind blows. If I must go mad, let it be dignified. Lock me up where I’ll feel like wood, where wanting won’t send me flopping outside, where my bones will shut up, where I’ll be good.

Where, Lord, will I find you: your place is high and obscured. And where won’t I find you: your glory fills the world. You dwell deep within— you’ve fixed the ends of creation. You stand, a tower for the near, refuge to those far off. You’ve lain above the Ark, here, yet live in the highest heavens. Exalted among your hosts, although beyond their hymns— no heavenly sphere could ever contain you, let alone a chamber within. In being borne above them on an exalted throne, you are closer to them than their breath and skin. Their mouths bear witness for them, that you alone gave them form. Your kingdom’s burden is theirs; who wouldn’t fear you? And who could fail to search for you— who sends down food when it is due? I sought your nearness. With all my heart I called you. And in my going out to meet you, I found you coming toward me, as in the wonders of your might and holy works I saw you. Who would say he hasn’t seen your glory as the heavens’ hordes declare their awe of you without a sound being heard? But could the Lord, in truth, dwell in men on earth? How would men you made from the dust and clay fathom your presence there, enthroned upon their praise? The creatures hovering over the world praise your wonders— your throne borne high above their heads, as you bear all forever.

Of Tribulation, these are They, Denoted by the White. — Emily Dickinson

In this world, the isle of dreams, While we sit by sorrow’s streams, Tears and terrors are our themes Reciting: But when once from hence we fly, More and more approaching nigh Unto young eternity, Uniting: In that whiter island, where Things are evermore sincere; Candor here and luster there Delighting: There no monstrous fancies shall Out of hell an horror call, To create, or cause at all, Affrighting. There, in calm and cooling sleep We our eyes shall never steep, But eternal watch shall keep, Attending Pleasures, such as shall pursue Me immortalized, and you; And fresh joys, as never too Have ending.

Revives a relic Liquefies dry blood Touches a corpse To the quick Converts a monster to love— Who made man from mud

When Simone Weil said it would be wrong to think the mystics borrow the language of love for it is theirs by right, though she didn’t call it the heavenly song of cock and cunt, perhaps that’s the inevitable conclusion of the sacred heart wounded into a womb, an arrow in the hand of an angel piercing such a depth in the body until it’s beyond what the body knows, delirious among the lilies or tasting the sweet meats of that table. Yet whoever the mystic woman is, she’s not ‘about’ sex; it’s not some sexual fantasy that she lies with in the dark mansion of God, sleeping every night in a different room, curling herself to the different shapes of emptiness. It’s not some narrative of first he this, then she that, that makes her tremble, being naked and open to nothing but that noche oscura, when with love inflamed, the saint runs out of the house into the hills, for she remains, asleep and dreaming, and in God’s innumerable rooms, innumerable forms and shapes of love, she lies down with them all in the depths of her body and blood, until every vision and icon shines with a glimpse of the forgotten and atavistic feminine body, pouring out of her as if out of the nipple of that blue stone embedded in the miraculous hand, as she herself becomes her own threshold; no faces remembered or imagined flicker across the hymen of her mind, for it’s not a penis, even God’s, that she imagines, but the form of herself, the knowing of the body of her own feeling, as in the Old Testament it was said that Jacob knew Rachel or Lot knew his own daughters, the knowing of the body allowed only to men; women, only the known or unknown, as she is known and un- known but as she knows herself as she knows the other that she is not: she enters herself, with fingers of melting wax, of cold cucumber, with a thumb of glow, with all the abandoned utensils of domestic life, with a stalk from the forsaken garden, and with the lost wing feather of the angel of death and with the voice of a baby’s cry nursing on the vestigial milk of the mother of mercy.

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come.

(A Reincarnation Phantasy) This was the story never told By one who cared not for the world’s gold. One of the idle and wise, A beggar with unfathomable eyes. One who had nothing but dreams to give To men who are eager to labour and live. For the world in its wisdom deep and dim Had taken all pleasure and treasure from him. This was the story his soul could tell, Immortal and unfathomable. There was no record in his brain, He did not know he should live again. But there was one who read the whole, Buried deep in a dead man’s soul. “In the days of Atlantis, under the wave, I was a slave, the child of a slave. When the towers of Atlantis fell, I died and was born again in hell. From that sorrowful prison I did escape And hid myself in a hero’s shape. But few years had I of love or joy, A Trojan I fell at the Siege of Troy. I came again in a little while, An Israelite slave on the banks of the Nile. Then did I comfort my grief-laden heart. With the magic lore and Egyptian art. Fain was I to become Osiris then, But soon I came back to the world of men. By the Ganges I was an outcast born, A wanderer and a child of scorn. By the Waters of Babylon I wept, My harp amongst the willows slept. In the land of Greece I opened my eyes, To reap the fields of Plotinus the Wise. When the great light shattered the world’s closed bars, I was a shepherd who gazed at the stars. For lives that were lonely, obscure, apart, I thank the Hidden One, in my heart, That always and always under the sun I went forth to battle and never won. A slayer of men, I was doomed to abide, For ever and aye, on the losing side. Whenever. I dream of the wonderful goal, I thank the hidden God in my soul That though I have always been meanly born, A tiller of earth and a reaper of corn, Whenever through ages past and gone The light divine for a moment shone, Whenever piercing laborious night A ray fell straight from the Light of Light, Whenever amid fierce, lightning and storm The divine moved in a human form, Whenever the earth in her cyclic course Shook at the touch of an unknown force, Whenever the cloud of dull years grew thin And a great star called to the light within, I have braved storm and labour and sun To stand at the side that Holy One. No matter how humble my birth has been, There are few who have seen what I have seen. Mine the shepherd’s star and the reaper’s reward, And the dream of him who fell by the sword. One thing I have learned the long years through, To know the false words from the true. The slave who toiled on the banks of the Nile With wisdom gladdened his long exile. From Buddha at eve by the Ganges’ side An outcast learnt the worth of the world’s pride. To the tired reaper, when day was done, Did Plotinus unveil the hidden sun. Amongst the stars, on a Syrian night, A ragged shepherd found the Light of Light. From dream to dream, o’er valley and hill, I followed the Lord Christ's wandering will. Kings there are who would barter a throne For the long day’s toil and the light unknown, The deed of the strong and the word of the wise, And the night under cold and starry skies— The white light of dawn on the hillside shed On Him who had nowhere to lay His head. Behold there are kings who would change with me, For the love of the ancient mystery. Shepherd and reaper and slave I have been, There are few who have seen what I have seen. I have been a gipsy since those days, And lived again in the wild wood ways. Wise with the lore of those hidden things, Learnt from Lord Christ in His wanderings, Beggar and reaper and shepherd and slave, I am one who rests not in any grave; I will follow each stormy light divine, And the secret of all things shall be mine. These things have I seen, would you bid me mourn That I was never an Emperor born?”

Various stars. Various kings. Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights. Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers, Much cold, much overbearing darkness. Various long midwinter Glooms. Various Solitary and Terrible Stars. Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers. Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars. More than one North Star, more than one South Star. Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems, Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thicknesses of Dark, Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth. Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens, All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes: Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk, Works of wonder and/or water, snowflakes, stars of frost . . . Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes, Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness, Various 5,000-year-old moon maps, Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in braille. Various gods making beautiful works in bronze, Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains, And all sorts of drystone stars put together without mortar. Many Wisemen remarking the irregular weather. Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers, Watches of wisp of various glowing spindles, Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac, Seafarers tossing, tied to a star . . . Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights. Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall. Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.