I No power moves through the absent womb of world Save the unchilding freedoms we exhume, Rareeshow raptures or agonies of grace--- 5 Initialed nights glorying boyhood's chrysalid had shed, Choosing or willing the infinities that we use. Anything is possible on the prayered moment if We can ourselves conform to our intensest wish. II 10 Sudden glory, like a chastizing star, comes down In visitation of a beauty so profound It charms from the chorus mass of men and hearts Slim glimmers of awakened individual; like a spark Sighing half-alive, into weedy rushes blown 15 That shift disconsolate in brutish dreams beneath the swell Of vaulting summer skies, hugely serene, That wait in their million fires, half-alone, For the solitary touch to shatter them, and fall. III 20 When nature's blossoming bower hovers over-- Impelling love of kind and kind for kindred Into the roving mind lost dew-dazzled in the grass Where leaf soft leans on leaf while faded hours pass Thoughtless in the light weaving blades tie rainbows of, 25 All confusions of the thousand rivers of thought we wove Return to the solitary glory of their mountain cone above. IV Does the mutable rose regret the sorrow That seeded its mystery forth, 30 When some previous forethought 'tomorrow' Spoken by argent dreams into the midnight ear did late Blind its parents to their unhappy state? What momentary interplay of unquitting faith Can ever give to us the tenth we pledge to it? 35 Unbeholden, proud, irreducible and true: ourselves. Out of ecstasy engendered can never come hate. V But death is no soft pursuer, and crimson without relent Stalks the lambent arteries of the brain 40 Shifting an unlifted sword of terrifying flame, Crowned with the antlered ratoon barbs of blood. To survive past his infliction would vitiate our hour Or fold what we are into what will be, or should. We are winning princes of ever-nascent hue 45 Until dread and expectation dethrone our power. VI The individual and his hissing spit of flame Remain an inviolable fire, never shamed By that which rises outlandish from the crux 50 Of this safe diminishment and purgatorial flux Of knowing and unknowing we purblind endure, Then clamor to regain, aping ignorance's blessing word, Crying out upon the rock: I do not know, not what, not why! VII 55 Beauty dissipates like the morning star, moving on To an unknown noon we never can remake; O artisan of ecstasies, defy With inmost grace my tembril heart's white-speaking argosy That foretells disasters in a triumph never crowned, 60 Or weak in the dividing chine of sable fields Thinks eyes that see her dying will never see her healed. VIII Beauty brushes up the brigand love in me, Feels severe heavens burn 65 Banished in a blink of pain; O summer dove, gone too often, so lightly afraid Of my intruding face, thrust too high again...! What should sustain this troubled ecstasy I feel Vanished breathless into those misty rocks 70 Swept with ominous shadows malformed by thought, Chambering a dark feeling I cannot bear to see? IX All life is a snaky finger pulling out a braid! Still I feel the opposite 75 Crowd into my aching thought Until every true light in darkness takes some part, And a looming mood is descending to obscure The innocent auguries of ever-sought, that risp The haloed meadow in a world gone sour, eclipsing 80 Each dew-weighted blossom with some soft blot.
From the collection "Ghosts and Princes"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.