​

​A CHRISTMAS TALE


the king perched on the lips of death—and what word will pass to kill Him?

I wait in the eaves, braced against the science of our days, the passing rubric
of continuity…

and He, not waiting, only poised before action or caught, somehow,
in the substance that swells before it.

*

the branches, the partings—though truth would tell us it is union, jointures themselves which rupture, the foil which clings to the cliff of equation…

so wake! you silent-seeming world

it is only illusion you seek, the sap of the bog asphodel, bright bloody lintels
the vegetal wrought entire.

this passageway, how it may be hewn to follow the rib of this bidden continent—
ah, but the branches!
from my window I see the wise old fingers they use to tap the shingles of your roof…

•

songs sung. a break in the wall till some beings toil to release it.
it? a rise, a lift—the beckoning we get to when sun’s gone away.

gone down. hours pacing themselves out, walking and counting. the song is its instrument,
it’s cause in the thundering night.

and the wall that hath been erected erects itself still, song sings. and the merry windows glow.
the vital transformation through synthesis.

and our substitutions turn to gestures as they glisten on the pond.

*

the former place of the god’s appearance, the word as it was once word—which slides through the acres to meet me, young moon to the fete.

or ye who shine when I beckon. this former world made of silver, a glimmer given over…

it was a field, surely, and ripe—and twined for a brief second with the new dew grass,
the king. his lips. his mastery undone.

*

only now may the figure be approached, may be said to have appeared—as the most luminous experiences flashed there and sprawled out before me.

would the intact feverish eternity allow these glyphs in snow to be written on your roof? across the street I try to read them from my window.

•

my vision is movement—but here I wait, waiting,

the people of our town have gathered at the base of our special tree, adorned.
or they seem to think of thinking, their minds blooming into loops that can never cease spinning.

the root of action long buried underground. but the lips, the word, our king.
so in sacrifice I prepare the ground to pierce it, and give in to sound in my silent, secret way.