The Fall of the Heaven-goers
Springboarding from Keats
Glancing Wordsworth and Hardy
Swinging birch trees with Frost
Methought I stood where trees of every clime
Bore shade and fruit, roost and perch,
And almost seemed to speak in pantomime
Of myrtle, plum, and birch.
“Soft,” said they, “with your gentle feet
Upon this sacred soil
Where dead they lay having fed the dust—
Remains of the ancient ones.”
With a feeling of awe I bared my feet
To let the soil speak in deaf-blind touch
As my feet became ears to words trapped
Seemingly in the wellspring of humanity,
Yet darkness only was heard
And silence felt. My feet
Trod the ground with gentle purpose.
My shoes hung about my neck,
Myself accustomed to the odor.
My eyes were stilling in the sameness
Of dirt become tree and tree back to dirt
Until startled by sight of rock-slabs, two,
Blown bare to show themselves speaking.
My eyes became ears to hear each word—
Singly inscribed was each slab—
Yet the script was unknown.
My feet were good; my eyes;
A voice from earth I would have grabbled.
The script was surely human
But more ancient than myself.
The slabs were speaking, but I could not hear.
A sadness swaying steps toward gloom
Broke—my wearied cheer pecking out its shell—
Breathing with the rustling of the trees.
The wind whispered and a learning ensued.
With ears and skin serving together
My thoughts were gathered and arranged
And drawn to origins—
The most ancient among humanity—
Adam and Eve cutting stone—
Last words carved by themselves
In bootless sighs—
Unreadable but speaking sadness—
Adam and Eve gone to dust.
“Body to dust; soul to heaven!” sang my heart.
“All to dust,” hummed my bones.
“With Enoch, soul to heaven!” sang my heart.
“Soul to a memorial tomb,” drummed my bones.
“With Elijah’s fiery chariot!” sang my heart.
“Hopping to a letter to a king,” thrummed my bones.
“Sorry they did what they did!” sprang my heart.
“Still to dust,” plumbed my bones.
“With Jesus!” rang my heart.
“The firstling of the heavenly resurrection,” mummed my bones.
My bones grew heavy and my heart grew sad
With the sadness of correction and the heaviness of disquietude
And I tried a desperate shot:
“To the place of everlasting barbarity,” clanged my innards.
“Not warned; not fair; not an act of love for the greater good;
And not well read,” thumped my bones.
Thus I knew what I knew,
But hardly what it meant.
I met the gurgle of a brook strung with a weir
But found only a fish who could bubble not a word
As to what fishdom may have seen.
I then clomb a hill
And clambered to a view of spread-out land—
My feet pierced twice by stickers,
My trudge grown gaunt and gruff
Yet my courage kept aloft by the stubborn mosses.
Again the wind whispered, but in a foreign tongue
And my feet grabbled but in vain.
My eyes took their role as visionaries,
With life and death spread out before me—
Happy short-cut Abel and sad-sunk drawn-out Cain.
The home of the human enterprise
Hunkered below the lofty hill
Sad and sweet, forlorn,
Yet gasping for a hope
That struck the heart a chill.
My hair, badly cut by my own hand,
Bespoke my umbrage with a snarl
That bounty given me is but a fraud
Deserving of a ‘here’s to you’ in mirrored nod.
My exasperation endeavored exploration
And mine eyes fell upon a noble sight
To fathom among philosophers with tobacco
Smoldering in their pipes, studious
Of history, inventing existentialism,
Saying heavenly help awaits long gone—
Existence here and now is where it’s at—
My soul disliking it while troubled as it flickered—
The ruin of the human race stood before me—
Every Max and every May—
As speckles of endeavor tried to raise their heads
Of steel and concrete, beautified with paint,
Machines and money dancing victory
In behalf of pleading eyes
In adoration of the stronger ones
Who glare the world down in little-dog bravado
Aware their glare becomes the world glaring back.
Before me glittered the million charities and kindnesses
That strove in vain against the ruin
And the glitter hit my brain as to why
People yearn to fly to never-never land,
Yet I saw their feet too heavy on the earth,
And I forgot myself
As I sighed my cosmic sigh
And groaned my cosmic groan,
And I saw the earth begin to crack
As the big dogs broke its bones—
And it gave the way to new—
The moment hitched its gaze unto my eye—
The real thing presenting.
What for me and you?
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