18

I love the hammer-stone poised above
The broken rock on which I stand: the cleaving stone
That releases a brightness; the breath that catches:
The rock on which I stand sustained.

Strength in the crystal, the black and white speckle,
Strength in the concrete where I crouch and strain,
Strength in the back, to cleave the stone,
Strength in the stone, by which to cleave.

Broken as I was in superfluous pieces,
The broken though brightened voice that sings
Found the critical ear whose tuning
Fork shook Earth til it reeled and split,

Spit white flame and ash from the depths,
Billowing smoke above, below,
Black so black it touched the brain-pan,
Touched as a light on the skin of the iris.

Flame, intense, roared in the gist of it,
Thunder claps that splintered lightning
To blood red coals and fiery stone
Arrows cut the cords that bound me.

And I saw to the worn-down channels of the sea,
The foundation-stones of the world as I flew,
Wrapped in the song, the stone: that ear
That hears and delights in song:

Loyal to the loyal, blameless to the blameless,
Pure to the pure, perverse to the crooked:
The light of my lamp, the steel in my sword,
The shield on my arm, the song in my mouth:

The rock, the bedrock itself of my self,
The rock that spreads beyond my stride;
The rock in my arm to bend iron bows,
The rock in my feet that turned them to wings

To soar the scope of all space to set me
High on the broad-rimmed ledge, eclipsing
The dust and scum beneath me, the mire
And filth in the drains who hate me

The brains that bait me, who think in committee,
Calling for help with a sanitized prayer, to a god
When useful, a devil when not. Failing that,
A tyrant, eunuch, mob.

I ground them fine like coffee beans
And poured the scalding water; drip
By precious drip they dissolved.
(I have a plastic Rubbermaid for mud.)

Once I sat beneath them and cringed;
They turned me away and the world
Kept turning. Now the rock is revolved,
My resolve, and now they come,

Tin cups for tinkles.
The rock lives; its many layers
Protecting the single seed that grows
Outward: an onion: a hand that delivered

A crop of seed set deep in the loam,
A crop of stars, thrown in the void
Grown so close and tightly together
(The reed-thin stalks swaying together)

My seeds of dust! broken into bloom!
Tight as the speckled rock, broken:
The breath, the voice, caught, released
Again and again in the heart of the stone.


© Dan Goorevitch, 1998