246 Spiritual poems

And both the girls cried bitterly (though they hardly knew why) and clung to the Lion and kissed his mane and his nose and his paws and his great, sad eyes. Then he turned from them and walked out onto the top of the hill. And Lucy and Susan, crouching in the bushes, looked after him and this is what they saw. — C. S. Lewis , The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Tonight we will function like women. The snow has gone away, the ice with its amniotic glare. I clasp my sister’s tiny hand. We will not turn away Though spring, spring with its black appetite, Comes seeping out of the earth. The lion was sad. He suffered us To touch him. When I placed the bread of my hands In his mammalian heat, I was reminded That the world outside this world Is all vinegar and gall, that to be a young girl at the foot of a god Requires patience. Timing. The White Witch has mustered her partisans. Because I am fascinated by her bracelets strung with baby teeth, I will remember her as the woman Who grins with her wrists. From my thicket of heather I note that in her own congenital way She is pure, that tonight she ushers something new into the world. I cannot stop it. I cannot stop it just as in that other place I could not keep the planes with their spiked fires from coming. Though in this closed realm the smell of camphor is overwhelming I have nothing but my hands to use In ministering to the dead. Here too My hands must suffice. Hush now while I testify. They are shaving him. The corona of his mane falls away Like pieces of money. In the moon’s milk light Her bangled wrists grin as she raises the blade. Something is diffused. In whatever world he comes again There will be women like us who choose to.

I have not walked on common ground, Nor drunk of earthly streams; A shining figure, mailed and crowned, Moves softly through my dreams. He makes the air so keen and strange, The stars so fiercely bright; The rocks of time, the tides of change, Are nothing in his sight. Death lays no shadow on his smile; Life is a race fore-run; Look in his face a little while, And life and death are one.

They pass before me one by one riding on animals "What are you waiting for," they want to know Z—, young as he is (& mad into the bargain) tells me "Some day you'll drop everything & become a rishi, you know." I know The forest is there, I've lived in it More certainly than this town? Irrelevant— What am I waiting for? A change in customs that will take 1000 years to come about? Who's to make the change but me? "Returning again and again," Amida says Why's that dream so necessary? walking out of whatever house alone Nothing but the clothes on my back, money or no Down the road to the next place the highway leading to the mountains From which I absolutely must come back What business have I to do that? I know the world and I love it too much and it Is not the one I'd find outside this door.

But then there comes that moment rare When, for no cause that I can find, The little voices of the air Sound above all the sea and wind. The sea and wind do then obey And sighing, sighing double notes Of double basses, content to play A droning chord for the little throats— The little throats that sing and rise Up into the light with lovely ease And a kind of magical, sweet surprise To hear and know themselves for these— For these little voices: the bee, the fly, The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks, The breeze on the grass-tops bending by, The shrill quick sound that the insect makes.

for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters One of the women greeted me. I love you, she said. She didn't Know me, but I believed her, And a terrible new ache Rolled over in my chest, Like in a room where the drapes Have been swept back. I love you, I love you, as she continued Down the hall past other strangers, Each feeling pierced suddenly By pillars of heavy light. I love you, throughout The performance, in every Handclap, every stomp. I love you in the rusted iron Chains someone was made To drag until love let them be Unclasped and left empty In the center of the ring. I love you in the water Where they pretended to wade, Singing that old blood-deep song That dragged us to those banks And cast us in. I love you, The angles of it scraping at Each throat, shouldering past The swirling dust motes In those beams of light That whatever we now knew We could let ourselves feel, knew To climb. O Woods—O Dogs O Tree—O Gun—O Girl, run O Miraculous Many Gone— O Lord—O Lord—O Lord— Is this love the trouble you promised?

It’s not so easy to smash the compass. To rely on the winds     the golden hum of Herb Kane clouds navigating the tips of these mountains. It’s not so easy to modify the compass. To apologize when your brothers are spreading the sashimi and churning the shoyu mustard. It’s not so easy to ignore the compass because it seems to have always been here in all its sextant glory     pointing distracting you from Wākea’s blue teeth nibbling Papa’s chest. It’s not so easy     but it’s possible to say “aloha, for now” to family and friends pouring bags of ice into clean coolers before the big show. To walk past uncle’s squid lū‘au bubbling green, to get in that car and drive, with nothing but a fistful of quarters for the library Xerox machine. It’s possible     because when those books slide across the counter and you walk to an empty table     the compass begins to shake and the needle is never the same    again. With every turn of a Pacific page you realize      pukas are being filled or new ones      uncovered. And the art of listening brings with it memories, of the physics of his hips and hands     when you first saw him cast that net     slicing the horizon. The needle doesn’t like it when you flatten the cube to discover your kūpuna were always just around the corner    from where you sit      now. And the halftime show hasn’t even started, yet. The time it takes to get from the third million-dollar commercial to the fifth     is equal to the time it takes to find the Kānaka Maoli name of the land that raised you     buried under the pavements     under the brand new      two-lane     fast food      drive-thru. But what the compass really hates      what it’s really afraid of is when you see the lo‘i in the same way that you see that empty Sunday afternoon library     when you finally see the moana in your kūpuna’s eye. So now      when you return home and the cooler is empty and the sashimi spiral is nearly gone   unfurl those Xerox copies across the dining table     consoling the cousins who lost money on the spread. And as the compass repairs itself    as it always does it will feel the sting when it finds you       tomorrow with your back being warmed by the morning sun.

To walk abroad is, not with eyes, But thoughts, the fields to see and prize; Else may the silent feet, Like logs of wood, Move up and down, and see no good Nor joy nor glory meet. Ev’n carts and wheels their place do change, But cannot see, though very strange The glory that is by; Dead puppets may Move in the bright and glorious day, Yet not behold the sky. And are not men than they more blind, Who having eyes yet never find The bliss in which they move; Like statues dead They up and down are carried Yet never see nor love. To walk is by a thought to go; To move in spirit to and fro; To mind the good we see; To taste the sweet; Observing all the things we meet How choice and rich they be. To note the beauty of the day, And golden fields of corn survey; Admire each pretty flow’r With its sweet smell; To praise their Maker, and to tell The marks of his great pow’r. To fly abroad like active bees, Among the hedges and the trees, To cull the dew that lies On ev’ry blade, From ev’ry blossom; till we lade Our minds, as they their thighs. Observe those rich and glorious things, The rivers, meadows, woods, and springs, The fructifying sun; To note from far The rising of each twinkling star For us his race to run. A little child these well perceives, Who, tumbling in green grass and leaves, May rich as kings be thought, But there’s a sight Which perfect manhood may delight, To which we shall be brought. While in those pleasant paths we talk, ’Tis that tow’rds which at last we walk; For we may by degrees Wisely proceed Pleasures of love and praise to heed, From viewing herbs and trees.

To airmen crossing and communicant With orders of this field, no landing here But by the grace of God; no postulant Piloting earthward should abuse his fear: Trust in the instruments which fall their round, Tonight the only ceiling is the ground; Zero, from nothing into nothing made, Signifies all of altitude that stayed. Notice the fog that makes me all but blind; Here in the tower my skeleton will do To signal you. I am for all your kind Tonight’s full complement and only crew. Airmen, I hope you read loud and clear; Your radios sound happy and sincere: Roger, you say, and dive for wreaths of holly Thinking the next voice heard will be as jolly. Suggest you take along the death’s-head flag And hope that waving it will set you free. Judgment, like flights, may be a game of tag And you can shake and plead the Varsity. Say that team spirit was your only motive: You shot them up and did a locomotive. What if there is a temporary fetter? Christ understands. He also got his letter. I have you, heroes, holding each your course: You shot them up a little, and you grope Tonight with neither memory nor remorse; My skull is watching in the radarscope. I marvel as I track your sure downfall How you can navigate or fly at all For thinking of the tallies without log Until you make an error in this fog.

with a mournful but driving feel, in Bm, 2/2 time in the dark, in the bitter wind listen to a dream grandmothers stand shoulder to shoulder, on the rim of a hill bend as one, and grasp one thing together ask them, in the dream world, why do they cry? they will show you in reply their shawls of many colours, spread these wings sweep you in, teach you how once a year, in the dark of the year we wash the whole world in a day—for one day, we cry until they're home, until they all are home from one dawn to the next mourning for the broken wailing for regrets love lost, wrong words, wrong actions unbalanced moments and all the cracks between heart and heart, parent and child lover and beloved friend, nation and nation creature, and creature of another kind for what we choose and what we neglect to choose for what we wish we'd known for each hand unclasped tongue unbridled one whisper falling short of heard until they're home, until they are all home the bread far from   the hunger                                         the apology the confusion            the broken road these things we gather in this blanket bone and sand and sage we wash the world, between us hold this blanket, fill it with our tears and when we have cried from one dawn to the next then we will rise, and we will dance until they're home, until they all are home lay your hands upon the truth of beauty's loss heavy, soft as moss, this blanket full of tears and dust and dying becomes ocean cradle, healing, dark the promise, washed clean by our sorrow today crying out, as we're birthing tomorrow not so much redemption as the law of moon and season calls for justice one day, the lawmakers must exit their echoing halls, fall in with the grandmothers dancing carry it                 cry it clean until they're home, until they are all home until light through their bodies translates to rainbows hung over the land until light through their bodies translates to rainbows strung over this land until light through our bodies translates to rainbows shining over our land until we're home, until we all are home

Everything looped, spiraled, circular (thought) But the labyrinth’s not a maze but a singular way to strike “the profoundest chord” across aspire Those who enter the labyrinth can leave (pilgrims sometime don’t) (Elle did not) Inside the largest circle (the labyrinth itself) splits into equal parts (demi-arcs or waves) No, silly, Elle whispers,petals If measured through the centre of the petals there should be two parts for each petal and one for the entry, but calculations from the measurements show that this is not so. The difference is about ½”. There is no way around this problem. We must seek a solution to the geometry of petals, the consequential mystery of Elle’s message: I was sick and am not healed.     I am not blind but dead.     I am not dead but silenced.     Alone, in love.