Stone Angels

Angels go - we

Merely stray, image of

A wandering deity, searching for

Wells or for work. they scale

Rungs of air, ascending

And descending - we are a little

Lower. the grass covers us.

But statues, here, they stand, simple as

Horizon. statements,

Yes - but what they stand for

Is long fallen.

Angels of memory: they point

To the death of time, not

Themselves timeless, and without

Recall. their

Strength is to stand

Still, afterglow

Of an old religion.

One can imagine them

Sentient - that is to say, we may

Attribute to stone-hardness, one after the

Other, our own five senses, until it spring

To life and

Breathe and sneeze and step

Down among us.

But in fact, they are

The opposite of perception: we

Bury our gaze in them. for all my

Sympathy, i

Suppose they see

Nothing at all, eyeless to indicate

Our calamity, breathless and graceful

Above the ruins they inspire.

I could close my eyes now and

Evade, maybe, the blind

Fear that their wings hold.

The visible body expresses our

Body as a whole, its

Internal asymmetries, and also the broken

Symmetry we wander through.

With practice i might

Regard people and things - the field

Around me - as blots: objects

For fantasy, shadowy but

Legible. all these

Words have other meanings. a little

Written may be far too

Much to read.

A while and a while and a while, after a

While make something like forever.

From ontological bric-a-brac, and

Without knowing quite what they

Mean, i select my

Four ambassadors: my

Double, my shadow, my shining

Covering, my name.

The graven names are not their

Names, but ours.

Expectation, endlessly

Engraved, is a question

To beg. blemishes on exposed

Surfaces - perpetual

Corrosion - enliven features

Fastened to the stone.

Expecting nothing without

Struggle, i come to expect nothing

But struggle.

The primal adam, our

Archetype - light at his back, heavy

Substance below him - glanced

Down into uncertain depths, fell in

Love with and fell

Into his own shadow.

Legend or history: footprints

Of passing events. lord

How our information

Increaseth.

I see only

A surface - complex enough, its

Interruptions of

Deep blue - suggesting that the earth

Is hollow, stretched around

What must be all the rest.

My "world" is parsimoniuos - a few

Elements which

Combine, like tricks of light, to

Sketch the barest outline. but my

Void is lavish, breaking

Its frame, tempting me always to

Turn again, again, for each

Glimpse suggests more and more in some

Other, farther emptiness.

To reach empty space, think

Away each object - without destroying

Its position. ghostly then, with

Contents gone, the

Vacuum will not, as you

Might expect, collapse, but

Hang there,

Vacant, waiting an inrush of

Reappointments seven times

Worse than anything you know, seven other dimensions

Curled into our three.

But time empties, on

Occasion, more quickly than

That. breathe in our out. no

Motion moves.

Trees go down, random and

Planted, the

Way we think.

The sacrificial animal is

Consumed by fire, ascends in greasy

Smoke, an offering

To the sky. earthly

Refuse assaults

Heaven, as we are contaminated by

Notions of eternity. it is as if

A love letter - or everything i

Have written - were to be

Torn up and the pieces

Scattered, in

Order to reach the beloved.

No entrance after

Sundown. under how vast a

Night, what we call day.

What stands still is merely

Extended - what

Moves is in space.

Immobile figures, here in a

Race with death gloom about their

Heads like a dark nimbus.

Still, they do - while standing -

Go: they've a motion

Like the flow of water, like

Ice, only slower. our

Time is a river, theirs

The glassy sea.

They drift, as

We do, in this garden so swank, so grandly

Indiscriminate. frail

Wings, fingers too fragile. their faces

Freckle, weathering.

Pure spirit, saith the angelic

Doctor. but not these

Angels: pure visibility, hovering,

Lifting horror into the day,

To cancel and preserve it.

The worst death, worse

Than death, would be to die, leaving

Nothing unfinished.

Somewhere in my life, there

Must have been - buried now under

Long accumulation - some extreme

Joy which, never spoken, cannot

Be brought to mind. how else, in this

Unconscious city, could i have

Such a sense of dwelling?

I would

Raise . . . what's the opposite

Of ebenezer?

Night, with its crypt, its

Cradlesong. rage

For day's end: impatience,

Like a boat in the evening. toward

The horizon, as

Down a sounding line. barcarolle,

Funeral march.

Nocturne at high noon.