Moly
I carry moly in my pocket;
I use it to mollify
the spirits that meander
where my memories go to die.
The elephants in their graveyards
stack the ivory to the heights
where phantoms march and murmur
of long-lost loves and lights.
Deceptive and dishonest
are the markers of the dead;
wanderers sad and foolish
are those by them misled;
But I too shadow-wander
beneath a darkening sky
where skeletons of madness
on sands of heartache lie.
Hyperlunar
With old sepulchral light the moon,
so harsh and vivid, plenilune,
now stares with glaring eye on all
those marked by traces of the Fall;
the night is dark, the night is bright
with unilluminating light,
with unchromatic, pristine white.
The standing stars look sadly down
on stark and shade-infested ground;
the eye is witched, its vision lies,
the light from every corner shies;
a primal sin, like stain, o'erlays
the compline earth that, quiet, prays:
O present help, assist our ways.
The moon resides in orbit high,
but higher orbits yet may fly;
the stars that in the evening wake
but gems of diadem now make
for regnal glory, light most sweet,
that spans the world and night defeats,
the moon itself beneath her feet.
Reconciliation
I walked in city-darkness underneath a stormy sky,
Dreaming of the echoes of a God condemned to die,
Dreaming of the words of a convict lifted high:
It is done; it is finished.
The darkness all around me was the blackness of my heart,
Tendrils, living death, that entered every part;
Down I fell, straightway, as wounded by a dart:
It is done; it is finished.
Then in a moment's clearness, I saw me as I am,
An endless sea of failings with denial like a dam--
And off in thorny bushes was the bleating of a ram:
It is done; it is finished.
No guilt within my heart and no burden on my back,
No torment by my demons or a conscientious rack,
Just safely well-defended from all darkness and attack:
It is done; it is finished.
I hardly can be better than the way I was before,
And yet the change is vast as a realm from shore to shore,
As simple and momentous as a sudden-open door:
It is done; it is finished.
And though I fall again I will never be alone
And wait to be restored in resurrected flesh and bone--
For the tomb in which I dwell is no longer sealed by stone:
It is done; it is finished.
Intellect
I am a leaf that grows on an infinite tree
that is only a flower on an infinite tree
that grows on a hill by an infinite road
that is lined with trees of an infinite height
beneath the expanse of an infinite sky
that has seen the trees grow for infinite years
and a sun that will shine for an infinite age
while the infinite worlds in their boundless array
are rolling forever under infinite stars
that make up a world among infinite worlds
that all grow like one leaf on an infinite tree
that I see in my hand with my infinite eye.
The Well
Amid the stones an ancient well does stand;
there druids, perhaps, once did their rites,
or some fair nymph gave it sacred gifts.
Through long years the endless caravans
cross the seas, cross barren lands,
through forests deep and wild wastes,
to seek the well, its darkened depth,
to cast their kingdoms in.
One day, too, you will seek that well,
with all your heart's unturning hope;
you too will treasures cast inside,
into the well most dearly sought,
the unwishing well, to undo a wish.
