Pendragon
There
are stars to wish upon,
and
stars to keep our love songs honest,
but
when the stars in the windowpane have gone
and
these wilderness endeavours fade,
will
nothing else remain
as
rule or symbol of the world we made?
Presaging
winter, masking fall,
there
is a measure in things,
a
nostalgia for human metaphors.
For
where there is memory
there
is also the bond of memory,
changes
following fixed forms, teaching caution.
To
such degrees, oracles at the core of stalks
devise
annihilations—
the
hand’s cunning, infinitely repaired.
But
was it ever enough, reading of Camelot
late
into the night,
or
from the dark side of a turning globe
observing
the centuries in their steady progress?
A
shadow, a footprint
burning
in the middle of the air,
shall
we conjure whole countrysides, and wander there
sleighting
coins from the fingers of simple men?
Considering
the choice and mastery of our lives,
sweet
nothings, how soldierly we stand!
Yet,
the times I think of him, often now,
the
features I loved him for come clearer
than
gifts of arms or prophecy command.
Do
we require of history
a
vibrancy more human than our own,
our
is it that we champion a contagion of events?
I’ve
lived within the reaches of the lore
detailing
the books of signs and glory,
dwelling
apart from the old alarums—
the
hand of the stranger and the weeping from without—
that
a sovereign trust complete lost passages,
on
evenings very much like this one, facing the night sky
as
though that commonplace utility
might
lend my forms a fitness and a perfect grace,
where
fate withstands the ordering of hours,
the
decay of love, and late-walking through the land.
Time’s
grammar shining like a birthstone,
shall
it be cut in courtly flourishes,
or
do we inhabit a round morality
turning
on a dream?
That
seasons remain forever in their course
as
neither tricks of tales nor the telling’s tools,
nor
image of a sunchild engrailed in gules,
I
witness this trust in species shape,
where
the life lived openly by law
tables
its elements to a timeless structure,
a
rarity aurora-like in the symmetry of the world:
the
motion of myth axial—
a
shuffling of trumps, a wavelength.
Reflected
in this spectrum,
a
myth proves princely by example,
the
legends configured into courts and clocks
like
sinews of a larger presence.
Through
trance or shaman song, numb with God
or
clinging to the ribs of monsters,
we
verge on the fabulous,
where
days have retreated into days
to
witness the world’s enactments,
a
world engaging its own horizons
in
relentless integrals of blue: decidedly human,
this
providence of a steady hand
like
the pages of a planet
opening
to an episode of roods and stealth,
linking
intrigue with enigma,
yet
bound in service to the common good.
Old
stars rising forever out of reach,
what
was it we wanted—
sweet
and easy prayers to see us through,
a
house with four seasons and the grass that grew?
As
maps appear, tamped with notes
marginal
in effect, so should I find my footing there,
for
beyond this there is nothing
save
prodigy and fiction, the only inhabitants
the
poet and inventor of fables.
I
should do as well, imagining
what’s
due the leagues, and leave land to the wind
to
contend with as it will.
But
the shadows lengthen with the day,
as
we who are posthumous
relinquish
our appetite for grandeur,
walking
at dusk, west along the coast road.
Measured
in acts, the world seems large,
and
old enough to answer for itself.
Yet,
why do I so recall
the
fabric of other afternoons, the passions,
and
increase of dignity termed story now?
Do
we invent the past, those parallels of zero?
The
days bear witness, but evidence confounds,
where
the sea’s wide prospect recalls in us
a
metaphor of ghosts and private goings,
kin
in conditions, attending to its own affairs
as
a small rain down can rain,
wash
you, make you clean: time grown luminous
where
waves have spooned the beach away,
time
delivered of the sea, the land,
the
roll and swell of the sea and the land together,
or
shall the illuminated page
reverse
the tidal stitch of days…
It
was never the Camelot I thought to find,
as
if partaking of offerings
or
going up to the terraces in spring.
It’s
well, perhaps, to wish upon the star that falls,
though
the meteor showers of certain seasons
leave
us blank with our own desires.
To
soothe the stranger, the mercury within me,
I
traced meridians through distant worlds
by
the motion of the worlds within me,
but
now have burned that page entire,
employed
the keener hand of fire
to
gauge that tension film of rage,
and
walk now evenings in the park,
silent
among swans and willows.
We
may move with mystery awhile,
willing
our names to the soil again
or
to the lives of children, yet never find our home.
And
though family silver is under the hammer
and
I borrow against the darkness,
I
wish without anguish now:
waiting
for equinox and the Lord’s elect,
determined
to winter here
washing
the corpses.
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