Sunday, February 15, 2015

HEART THREAD 208 & 209

208.

Forgive that little lude or play between the going on
I lost the knack of not answering myself
I stand accused of lying down a folly to the Greeks
of rising up again at cock-crow and my people know me not
for I was married to a windmill and a lake
in summer rain every green a different color
I set it down meaning to revere it later
but then came Cossack horsemen through the aching shtetl of my brain
and who knows now where reverence went
thirteen Jews at a table telling the joke that is God
who when he was lifted up healed all the world but not himself
sunrise from the earth he had no self to heal. 

209.

I’m still with Abbot Benedict still with Malory
cannonshot was supposed to be the end of us
the middle time we called it when we were young in it
now it’s only now and Internet is our Maimonides
everything lasts everything changes no one remembers
pleasure is the only gift study how to please
it lasts as long as Christmas does seventeen years and come again
I want to know the cycle of each thing
lifespan of the chickadee of Niagara
of me for that matter but nobody knows
how well we’d live if we knew the date of our demise
olé! I die today.