Graven Image

I expect anger,
More anger
And fear

The clearer
This vague image
Coalesces in a niche

With the closing
Of the year;
Waves, burgeoning.

Watch the sundial,
Pinched like a wick
By some merciless

Minion of unease,
Tricking the laughter
Out of pretense

Or penitence---
Even the rough
Patches on knees

Have been worn,
Quickly, quickly
By the threadbare

Cushion of prayer
Before the altar.
Squat, lurid

Purple candles
Smoke unattended
In orderly rows.

Evening washes
The leaded windows
Suffusing, sinister red---

Wine-spill spreading
Along the chapel walls
And flagstones

With chiseled names
And dates, Ebeneezer,
Zachariah, 1750-1800 . . .

Where is fancy now,
Where the nursery tale
That comforted?

Belief was always so.
I hold steadfast
To remnants---

The blue deer
Evading huntsmen's
Horns and arrows

By great leaps,
Enormous trees
And hooting owls,

Geese that bridged
Vulnerable open fields
With comet tails

And starlight,
The indigent genie
Who slunk back

Inside his volute,
Seven-world bottle
Cast into the sea.

These made night
Passable, are still
Strangely efficacious

In the insincere
Adulthood watches,
The sentry-level

Singularities of duty
To age and custom.
Covered in red,

Proceed cautiously
Out of the dead spot.
Slink, slink---

Leaping and flying
Are nothing
Without obstacles.

I address
The image
Fearfully, angrily---

You have this sea,
You have the wound
To which you return.

---GNM, 2005