Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption
Surely Isaac must have held some kind of grudge?
Perhaps that’s why he does not meet the weary gaze
His greying father shoots across the vaulted nave,
Where the plaster peels, cracks, and fades. I would not judge
Another’s taste in god, in spite of such demands –
I was not there in Haran. Nor am I at home
’Neath Ambrose’s furlèd brow, the sneer of St. Jerome.
But when I stood between those outstretched, tortured hands,
Marking each thorn, the fibres of the wood, its grain,
And as the organ thundered through those open wounds,
And as the blood seeped down the scarlet windowpane
The air came close. Was that supposed to be a sign?
Outside – the markets, traffic, bars, din – all resumes.
And still the willing heart makes all the world a shrine.
Field Study
Grey March, and damp. The thaw in flux
as weather fronts file through,
though the kites will double back
and back again with a tilt of a tail,
combing the clods for spring.
Beneath the static of pylon lines
The field sees little movement now.
No rusted plough cleaves its winter slumber,
no frostbitten driving-boy clutches the goad,
no arthritic nag drags its nose in the dirt (though,
in a month or so, detectorists will draw their own parallels,
laden with thermos flasks and hopes of Roman gold).
But underfoot still the feeble oscillation
of ridge and furrow, like a stray memory,
suffers the attenuation of idle years
which, come harvest, wield a lonely scythe.
The Wickie
You always said you saw me clear as day,
each night as you doled out kisses, your fingers
coiled in my hair. Then you were afraid
of who you were, who you weren’t. You waded
blind through cities in search of strangers or
yourself in finished form. And I stayed home
beneath the dim of the desk lamp, until
all the world’s square pegs seemed in their round holes.
And my mind ran dry. And the sweat dripped down the walls.
You called me your lighthouse on the rocks
as I declined into eclipse, but it
was you, your works that beamed, as you took shape
and stepped out onto an aurora of
your own design. While I stayed home beneath
that lamp, though the fuse had long since blown,
recalling how we laid together, and
wondering if, when you’d dealt your last, you saw
it was not you, my love, who was afraid.