pavelspoetry.com€¦ · Web viewOVER A MOUSE-LIKE FACE. With shocked and puffy eyes. The small man sits at a table. With a bottle of chocolate milk. Like a mouse at a covered saucer

October 2017 (October 1, 2017–September 30, 2018)/© Pavel Chichikov

OVER A MOUSE-LIKE FACE

With shocked and puffy eyesThe small man sits at a tableWith a bottle of chocolate milkLike a mouse at a covered saucer

Wary, exhausted, defiantFacing a football game—On a screen that hangs behind himA soccer game goes on

He doesn’t drink the milkAs if he has lost his stomachOr the knowledge of how one drinksOr the skills of thirst and time

How many are barely aliveBut grasp the edges of timeLike those who have climbed for their livesAnd are often tumbled back

What have we done to each otherWe failed and dismal raceHis whiskers are blonde and bristleOver a mouse-like face

Do not preach to me everOf a failure of charityO sentiment most sourOf dull humanity

Pavel October 1, 2017

1


A LONELINESS OF LIFE

I saw them cut a row of ash trees downEach condemned, a victim of disease,Borer beetles damaged all these trees But one we knew was green with robust healthGrew alone beside a local roadBy that escaped a parasitic load

Alone among plantations of ash treesCondemned to be destroyed, it flourished, grew,Seeds hung down, this ash tree might renew

The lonely may survive when others fail,Among us too the lost may be robust With vigor of a sort, God seems unjust

It is their isolation which may save,A loneliness of life and not the grave


2


ONCE I SAW HIS STATION

The blessing of the beasts was in the gardenGod gave light to creatures of creationThen He said to both of our first parentsNow you hallow them as I have done

After they were banished by a swordSome animals they killed and some they neutered Exploited some or gave them to the LordSome they hunted, some of them they captured

See the way Saint Francis led us backHeld his hands out to the hallowed birds,Then they sang, he listened to their blessingThe melodies that fed him without words

Once I saw his station on SubasioThat lover of creation called Francesco


3


THE SONG WAS HEARD

The blue bird wanted to soar like an eagleSo up he leapt from a broken branch,A dwarf like me is not its equal—Blue is the sky, I’ll take the chance

When he had risen over the treesHe saw a mountain chain ahead,Above the mountains I will freeze—Where has my rash ambition led?

Below was the pyramid of dreamsGranite gray and glinting whiteBy crystal in its frozen seams,One side day, the other night

Then from the day and night the birdFrom throat to tail began to sing,But who knows what above him heardOr what below was listening?

The bird was wrapped in zenith blue,The song was heard, but heard by few


4


A DESERT NIGHT, 2017

Across this pagan country spreadsThe morbid shadow of the dead,The twilight of a heartless towerUnder which his targets cower

Shoots and shoots and shoots againThe friendless who is no one’s friend,He is the priest of fear and sorrow,Famished spirit, hungry, hollow

He is a seraph of despairA fallen angel everywhereWho steals our faces so that weWill trust the fiend we cannot see

He is one of us and oursA desert night which has no stars


5


BEST LOVED OF ALL

The coloring of the autumn leavesExhaustion of fertilityScarlet, russet and the bronzeBut gold of autumn hickory

Best loved of all, reminding ofGod’s immanent immortal love

Which is a light of deepest goldLeaves foretelling as do allThe golden things remaining oldAlthough in autumn they may fall

Best loved of all, reminding ofGod’s innocent immortal love

All things that fall remind of these:Golden ark and cherubimThese soon denuded hickoriesStripped like Christ and yet like Him

Best loved of all, reminding ofGod’s light and His immortal love


6


SEE ONCE AGAIN

Stand at the end of the gardenLook through the frame of the arborBefore you in perspectiveA carpet laid forever

Each shining autumn flowerGold and crimson, whiteOf Dusty Miller, marigoldDisplaying love’s delight

A carpet made for autumn sunsTo rest their tired limbs,Higher still His MajestyWho turns the burning rim

Remembering the place we livedSee once again, the Lord forgives


7


PLANTED IN THE SPRING

Butterflies love lantanaLantana loves the sunYellow flower in the sky

What butterfly loves you?What angel sips your photosphereThe nectar of the night?

The sky is a lighted gardenPlanted in the springOf everything


8


I WISH

I wish that I could lie out in the sunAs turtles do when hauled out on a stick,Neck stretched out as mid-day has begun

There relax, repose and start to warmFrom leather to the inmost parts of meAs turtle dreams begin to rise and form

Above the weeds and water nymphs I takeWhen warm enough to feed and find a mateArmored against bass and pike and snake

Begone vain conscience, nervous to the core,Alive and timeless, ancient, ever-newI have the sun and who could ask for more?

But restless, ever restless is our clanWith cunning brain and some of us a tan


BaskingPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

9


PASSAGE ACROSS THE DEAD SEA

We stop before the Bitter Sea,My guardian, but who is she?Partly spirit, dragonflyStands with me, and there am I—The surface white with salty foamThe sky a milky azure dome—To cross that salt without her aidImpossible, I am afraid—But I will take you, come behindNow be safe, have peace of mind

Long and slim my caretaker,Bold she is, I cling to her,Impassable her sky-blue veil Buoyant through the salt we sail,Swift and without harm we go,That which mummifies below,Around the sea the barren hills,The desiccating dryness kills—Across the Dead Sea cut our wakeAnd we are safe, our passage take


10


WILLIAM THE BASTARD

William the Bastard before he was dead:“My body is stained with the blood I have shed”—Made his confession, turned over and died,A sturdy sarcophagus took him inside

As the priests and the Normandy mourners stood there,His corpse which was corpulent fouled the air,Burst like a bomb and the rest of them fledFrom William the Conqueror when he was dead

Was he absolved, forgiven or not?Would his soul like his body explosively rot?What about us, with our butchery wars,Will our crimes be absolved or will there be more?

Will we explode as the race decomposes,The angels retreat with their wings to their noses?


11


TIMELESS, DO NOT BE AFRAID

The empty church with me aloneSitting in the rearmost seat,The sanctuary at the front,Silence final and complete

I see the dust a veil that falls,War and killing out and in,The altar sinking into dust,Skulls of prophets rise and grin

The cross of Christ descends to deathCovered in the empty field, But like a seed it grows againThe Corpus rising is its yield

Christ Himself a harvest made,Timeless—do not be afraid


12


THE LAND THAT YOU KNOW

What are the geese in their wavering flightTelling the spirit that keeps them in sightAs they veer to the south and call to each other?We are a signal, keep up with us, brother

We are the sign that spirits must goBy wing or by foot or by death even soFar beyond meadows, the sea or the lake,Some who were trailing will strain, overtake

Listen, look upwards, but come, come awayIt may be tomorrow, it may be today,Join and be with us, on foot or in air,No place for a soul on the Earth anywhere

I have no wings and am heavy and slowBut there is no death in the land that you know


13


THE BLOOD OF THE PHYSICIAN

Can there be immunity to evil,Antibodies in the human blood?One cup, one sip and even in one drop—Resistance evermore, but only drink

How quickly do these antibodies strengthen?As quickly as you wish in any doseBut you must be of faith in precious loveThe blood of the physician

Will any blood be of avail or not?It is the blood of one who cures diseasesEvil in a permanent remissionBy this sole essence of the blood of Christ

Who will prescribe this extract of salvation?It is the Paschal Lamb whose heart is pierced


14


TAKE IT DOWN

They drove the cross as deeply as they couldThat cross of cedar, pine and cypress wood,And when the Christ was taken down they triedTo yank it from the earth where Christ had died

But no one could no matter what their strength,It seemed to them to be of endless length,The upright stretched until it reached the skySo tall that on it no one else could die

They sawed the upright, struck it with a bladeNo cut would show, no damage had they made,The cross grew taller still it was intactNot even had a splinter of it cracked

Take it down, the sergeant-major criedIt’s on this cross the rebel Jesus died,But still it stayed immovable and grimAbove unmoved and cold Jerusalem


15


THE LOVE THAT WAS LIKE STONE BEFORE

This morning when a frost congealedAnd hillsides faced the Polar Star,White like some old soldier’s scarBullet-streaked the grass and field

I saw five thirsty sparrows hop,Rebound against an icy pond,Steel could not be harder thanSuch ice, they could not drink a drop

But then the early sun rose upAnd melted what was hard before,So too does warmth at last restoreThe stone-like crystal in the cup

That even frozen hearts may pourThe love that was like stone before


16


THE PRIESTS AND THE NUNS OF TIME

Out of the quarry of historyThe dust of the past arisesFrom the pallid seam in the rock

Those who are mining it stopAnd stare at what they have foundThey look: It is the answer

They bared their inhuman facesTo the sun and then they lookedOnce more at the object beneath them

So that is what really happenedThey think as they stare dumbfoundedAt the objects covered with dust

Four ossified assassinsAnd a fifth and a six lay thereWho were those who had planned the murder

Near them the man whose lifeThe six had conspired to takeWith his shattered bloody skull

How long have they all been here?It depends on the depth of the stratumI would say ten thousand years

But all of it was forgottenBy them who lived in that timeExcept for a few like us

And those did not forgetBut related the story to usWe priests and nuns of time

And now to the next excavationIn the pit of forgotten sorrowOn the other side of the world

But what will happen to themThe now exhumed assassins?Asked one of the excavators

17


See, look up at the sky,The vultures are now arrivingAnd the feast has just begun


18


TRUE GOD, TRUE MAN

Christ will come to meet you as a young manFrail because the Faith is frail these daysAnd He will hug you with relief at having met you

There will be others there, some other FaithfulWatching in a watchful, careful silenceAs the pageant of the faithless goes its way

As friends you both will find the fishermanThe one who serves St. Peter’s catch that dayYou and Christ will eat the food of faith

A young man met by chance who is the ChristWhom you will meet some day and you will feelThe joy of friendship with the Son, who needs you

He will hug you with relief, He is so lonelyWhen He lives on Earth, true God, true man


19


THE HEAVY GATE

This morning at the Mass beforeThe tabernacle, Jesus woreThe cover of the shawl of prayerThat servants of the Father wear

Will Your people stand and waitBefore the closed and fastened gate,Will no one swing it on its hinge?He wore the shawl of stripe and fringe

He looked inside the ark but sawNo roll of parchment of the Law,Instead he found His own distressThe agony that He must bless

I with Him was joined to seeMy blessing and my agony—How hard it is my Lord but stillSuch grace according to Your will

Then the heavy gate swung wideThe loved ones of my life inside


20


ASHES FLOATING IN THE SKY

The Leader to the podiumThe crowd stands up, is stricken dumb,He braces with his hands on hipsThen puts a finger to his lips

Announces war, the end of peaceThat every state of calm shall cease,That all disperse to mobilizeRapidly, preserve surprise

The Leader disappears, the crowdShouting thunderously loud—But then they too evaporateThe echo of a vanished state

They are the ghosts of death beforeThe instant brevity of war—A swift attack and then it’s doneStart and finish all in one

Ashes floating in the skyBefore there’s time to wonder why


21


SOMETHING IN THE SOUL HAS HEARD

A few small shadows in the scrub—Juncos from the north prepareTo spend the winter in our woods—Still cold but not as cold as there

All winter on gray freezing daysThey flit from twig to twig to eatSeeds that keep them live and warmFrom sorrel, chickweed and buckwheat

They’re with us now, their souls have learnedA lesson from a biorhythm—Leave your breeding grounds and findWhere seeds mature by early autumn

Who has taught these first-year birds?But something in the soul has heard


22


ALL IN THE DARKNESS

The last days of OctoberBut still I hear the cricketsInsatiable to propagateIn the darkness, from the window

A force unstoppableCompels the living soulA light within to guideThey go by scent and sound

Look closely thenAt what they areMatchsticks, living girdersMade of jointed chitin

Globular, enormous eyesCompound geometric cellsBrains like pith headsMastering such complicated duties

All in the darknessAs are weIn our own night fallenAnd impenetrable darkness


23


UNLOCK THE LOCK

The Master coming from a feast—The silence of the fearful onesA darkened house, all movement ceased,Loveless daughters, loveless sons

In dead of night the sun arrivesBehind the door he waits to beAdmitted to the house of dread—Who will unlock the door for Me?

“We are ashamed, our Lord and GodOur hands unclean, the windows blockedWith dirt and we are drunk with drinkAnd all the entrances are locked”

Some because they were confusedSaid: "Master come but do not stay."Others said: “Unlock the lock.”Afraid that He would go away

There He stood behind the doorAnd light from light is what He wore


24


THE BOILER ROOM

Those buttons won’t push themselvesSaid the boss on the elevatorTo the intern standing behind him

At the Judgement he will runThe elevator that goesBetween the floors of Hell

Third floor, he will announceTraitors and embezzlersWatch your step

And the flames will beat his faceWhen the doors openTo the third floor

Second floor, he will sayOppressors of the weak hereStep lively please

Hell is a tall department storeAnd he will be the operatorOf Hell’s elevator

Ground floor, he will sayDeniers of the Holy SpiritDo not block the door

But then if he works wellAnd presses all the buttonsHe will be promoted to Purgatory

There he will sell shirts and tiesTo the stokers of the furnacesIn the boiler room


25


THE VIGIL LIGHT

The vigil light, my thoughts have died in meAn empty church, my pulse for company—I wait beside the tomb for Him to liveSilence has no silence left to give

A muttering of scenes, an aimless streamA dozing and an insubstantial dream—Come awake, He is not dead but livesThe risen One does not forget, forgives

Nothing, I had fallen into sleepThe vigil light still burns and vigil keeps—Why am I as empty as the room,As lacking in rejoicing as the tomb?

The light is like the light that burns in me—Small and weak it keeps me company


26


SO PETTY A RACE

Over Mount Rainier a four-seater plane—From five thousand feet some details remainA long file of climbers seen dark against snowGreen lakes in sockets of lava below

What would it look like from orbit or more?Maybe a few indications of war—Smoke of the cities would spread through the airAnd cover the globe—though not your affair

Higher then still, not even a dotOf light from this spinning invisible spot,Not even a smudge on the arm of the roundGalaxy turning in silence profound

Why then did Jesus come down to the lostTo give us His grace at a terrible cost—Blood on His hands and His feet and His faceAnd a spear in the ribs for so petty a race?


27


SIMPLE JESUS

Suppose that God has not become the ChristBut simple Jesus, artisan and friendOrthodox of prayer and sacrifice,That warmth of wife and children were his end

To grow into his fatherhood then seeHis children having children of their own—How sweet and sweetly modest would that be,Not crucified, ascending to a throne

Not paying for our evil with such painThat tombs would shake and darkness seize the Earth,No torture that salvation be attained,No angels’ phalanx chorusing His birth

The sweetness of a life so kindly veiled—Not saving God nor glorious, not failed


28


THE HORSES OF THE NIGHT

The horses of the night kick down their stallsTrample on the shadows of nightfall,Memories cling tightly to their manesThey have no halters, snaffle bits or reins

Gallop onto bridges over streamsThat flow along the channels of your dreams—Lose your balance falling you may drown,Give the horse its way and don’t look down

It carries you to places unrememberedFortresses and bastions undefended,Gates will shut behind the horses’ hocks,Silent is the closing of the locks

Sweat is on their flanks and you awakeA fleck of foam the souvenir you take


29


WHEN SEVEN SEALS HAVE BEEN UNSEALED

Like snowy wool a herd of sheepAbove the hills I saw them leap—The shepherd was the storm that passedThe staff he swung an autumn blast

Like felted wool, a crumpled skin,Like eyes that swirl and stare within—A mind impresses on the skyIts fantasies, the storm slides by

To the right and to the leftThe images of warp and weftWoven by some reverieThat makes the mind and world agree

There is another mind and willThat sees us, finds us, holds us stillAnd looks, but what it sees is true—A sight that penetrates us through

The truth of us to be revealedWhen seven seals have been unsealed


30


ONE ABOVE ALL

Factions at war are the death of the stateTrue there are debts that make them afraidFavors and money that must be repaid

First by a slander and then to removeThe hindrance that keeps them away from the throneAround it or on it where seated alone

Dispensing their kindnesses gathering alliesThey lever the law to gain their advantageA matter at first of an edge and percentage

But later when edging’s no longer effectiveThey move to extortion and bluntly to violenceThe way to coercion or even to silence

Until there is only a winner by dread,One above all—the Republic is dead

Pavel November 1, 2017

31


THEN A GLANCE

For one who died eight years agoGod, who knows him, will prepareA meeting on the angel stair

They will not come down all the wayNeither can we there ascendBut friends, we do not thus pretend

Changed by love’s eternal graceThe light of God shines from the faceIn us the living but a trace

See each other then we meetAnd we will stop and eye to eyeKnow the living do not die

Then a glance and then farewellBut little of this can we tell


32


NO WORDS FOR THIS

I have a tattoo on my thumbAnd yet it does not look like oneTell who has made them

Four black stripes, a window paneFree-falling left the marksAnd they remain

Now four decades, more ago,They stripe my skin and deeper goInto my spirit

Because I would not play a gameOf favor and of petty fameThe skin was marked

A sign for so much to be lostReckoning the costA son I loved

Explaining what the tattoo meant:The marks remind, there are no accidentsAll happenings are signs

To signify the loss and yetThough mutilated by regretNo words for this

No words for this for we are dumbExcept for tattoos on the thumbThey speak for us


33


NOTHING CAN HAPPEN WITHOUT PERMISSION

Three decades gone in MontrealDe-icing the wings of the Moscow flightA white December at Dorval

Over and over and over againThe sound of the fluids sluicing the iceOn the idling Ilyushin

The noise of the pressure, a sandpaper soundHeard through the hull of the waiting planeAn Aeroflot flight for Moscow bound

Eight hours east cold Moscow waitsGray long blocks of flats and snow,Ice in the forests anticipates

The mind is frozen, runs and repeatsHot glycol melts the frozen rimeWhile snow has covered the Russian streets

Nothing can happen. The passenger sitsAs the wings take ice and hoses runThe frost will melt when the sky permits

Nothing can happen without permissionNo object, nor movement, nor any thoughtAnd time itself requires ignition


34


THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY

I went to Lopshenga on the White SeaA fishing village of forty cabinsThe Soviet Union was dying that summer

Snug wooden cabins, kitchen gardensA motorcycle leaned against one shedSmall boats were hauled on a gritty beach

No one can get there overlandNo roads go there, winter or summerThere’s only the low-lying tundra, the sea

For the sick a short-wave radioTo call for a helo when something’s badA flatbed truck takes the coffins away

They were buried out there in the wildernessFar away from Soviet powerFor generations of the rustics

They like it that way, have liked it that wayThe farther away the safer the skinsOf these silent Karelian fishermen

Across the sea the Solovetski islandsWhere they buried the bodies of worn-out zeksThose inmates of the Bolsheviks

Where the commandant said build me a roadAs flat as the calmest sea and moreAnd when it is finished come to me

And I will pour out a glass of vodkaFull to the brim and trembling thereAnd set the glass on the roof of my auto

And then I will start the well-tuned engineDrive down the road with the glass on topIf one drop spills, you will all be shot

The village is far and they like it that wayThe White Sea in summer is flat and grayBut not like a road for a commandant’s car

35



36


THEY KNOW

They know what we will never knowUntil we pass beyond the frameAnd entrance to the Holy Name

Along the roadside beggars waitEmbellished robes and tricks of brassWho try to touch the souls who pass

Weighed with dark embroideriesBut inside they are thin and hollowWish that they could move and follow

Some will pass and some will not—Some will go beyond the gateEnvied by the souls that wait

What is it like to see and pass?No one comprehends but thoseWho wear such light and simple clothes


37


THE FULL-BLOWN PLAGUE

Influenza starts with chillsAching muscles do not killBut if infection should progressIt takes the lungs with such distressThat mortal to the living breathAsphyxiation leads to death

See in recent historySuch symptoms in the centuryBefore our own that seemed the worst,The twentieth, the mad, the cursedIn which in bombing from the airNo innocent below was spared

To those in noncombatant zonesClemency was rarely shown,In holocausts behind barbed wireStarvation slew, and flesh on fire,So then full onset of diseaseWould drive the whole world to its knees

The symptoms we have seen beforeThe full-blown plague a total war


38


FIENDS OF AUTUMN

A wind blew shouting from the northAs from the church a light came forth—I took my cap off to the HostBut it was not the Holy Ghost

Can’t you see St. Michael pinThe Devil to the freezing windTrample him and make him yell:“Michael let me go to hell”?

Stand outside, the frost is deepSending all the trees to sleepSap retreating in the freeze—“Hats off!” shout the sleepy trees

Wind has shivered down the spruceFiends of autumn on the loose


39


THE WHOLE WORLD

The whole world is a burning bushHoliness if we but knewThat on the ground of Eden grew

Forbidden to us to be touchedThe ripened fruit eternal flameBut only those who ate could name

The presence in the tree could speakAll within its spacious shadeThe world of space and time was made

What would happen if we ateThe fruit of life and death, could weComprehend reality?

The fruit would burn the heart of usLook around you and keep stillThe whole world is a parable


40


TWO CREATIONS

Small as the sparrow that breaks from the shellDeep as the summons that rings from the bellDark as the spirit that slides on the seaStrong as the word of the coming to be

Then after creation the world had decayedDeath’s resurrection to life was delayedSo a second creation as great as the firstLife was released from decay and uncursed

A power unspeakable causing a pureWorld of existence He made to endureSuch was the power of Jesus’ dominionWhen death was defeated by Christ’s resurrection

Now it exists although to the blindInvisible, those who are sighted will find


41


IN THOSE THREE DAYS

In those three days He wrestled with the darknessAnd all the power used to make the worldWas used again to sanctify the cosmos

As Jacob wrestled with transcendent powerSo Jesus grappled with the bane of lightThe paralyzing grip of endless night

In all of us the dreadfulness goes onDeath within the life of us will tryTo make us yield, convincing us to die

Jesus be our champion and friendDeath is stronger than our feeble strengthIntercede, our strength is near an end

Take our places, grapple with the foeCome and make the horrid fiend let go


42


CAIN WAS IN ERROR

Not even fifteenThey took him awayTo a home for delinquentsIn handcuffs—he’s violent

His mother’s a junkieThe husband sells drugsShe’s often in jailHer husband distributes

The father’s own fatherA drunk so amokHe was locked in a basementOften for weeks

Her father and motherWere slaves to the coreOf drugs and compulsionTo scavenge for more

The child is so violentHis teachers won’t have himStrong beyond yearsHe beats other children

Where is the hopeFor people like thisIf they should vanishWho fondly would miss?

Perhaps at the JudgementA judgement of allNot by the saintsBut by those who appall

Not by the bestA decree from the worstEveryone judgedBy the lost and the cursed

Cain was in errorWhen asking if heWas the watch of his brotherAnd so will we be

43



44


WHO WILL SAY?

Who will say when winter has begun?The wind conveys the firing of the guns,In every city all around the sphereA shiver of anticipating fear And when the burning rockets start to flyWhich of us will live and who will die?When the lights have faded and grow faintWhere will be the refuge of the saint? Tell us now what others have foretold,The advent of an everlasting cold,Tell us what the prophets prophesiedA remnant lived and all the others died Winter in the summer will beginWhen sunlight in a summer noon grows thin


45


ACCIDENTS

She asked me: “Why so grim and harsh these days?This mood, is it a temporary phase?The shallow lilt of sparrows in the airOf breath and sun all creatures take a shareAnd you and I together make a partOf this completely unaffected artThis life between the darkness and the sky—Love birds, someone called us, you and I”

I have no answer to this enquiryNo one knows me better than does sheAnd yet I have no feeling of repose—And I can see what premonition shows—Of course, it may be fancy of the mind—But accidents have surely been designed Pavel November 17, 2017

46


A RISEN STAR OF MORNING

Long ago, an Old One told meThink of long runs, be not hastyDestinies develop slowly

She must be dead by now, I wonderWas she harvest or death’s plunder,Was she weed to be ploughed under?

She traveled on the unknown way,The darkness that might lead to day,A brilliant body or decay

Is she living, is she dead?All destroyed or harvested?Nothing or on glory fed?

To be a banquet’s living guest?Asleep in an eternal rest?Or risen star of morning, blessed?


47


ON HEARING THIS From a Story of the Desert Fathers

A saint lives on the edge of hellThe frontier between good and evilA soul on guard and ever watchful A saint knows evil more than most,In his own spirit he has foughtSmug Vanitas, an evil boast Once along the road he metThe Devil looking sleek and mildAbashed and sated with regret It said: You have defeated meAnd why? The reason is becauseOf your unflawed humility On hearing this the frightened manClapped his hands against his earsTurned away and screamed, and ran Pavel November 19, 2017

48


ACROSS THE RIVER Before us lay the green and gentle hillsBehind us was the forest of soft footfallsA brown slow river stirring there beneath usThat widened to a pool of quiet water Across the river was another countryGreen and peaceful as the side we stood on,A land I yearned for, how to cross and go?A quiet man sat near us, would he know? A quiet man with dark brown skin—he smiled—Possibly across the pool, he said—But how to cross, achieve the other land?Difficult to say, though near at hand So near at hand and yet so far away—He smiled—it might be possible to cross—So different from the land that you come fromWhere all decays and did so from the start I looked across the river and the pool—The rolling fields and distant darkened hills—The water set before us seemed not wideThe brown man left it to us to decide Pavel November 20, 2017

49


HAVE YOU SEEN? Have you seenThat on the dayWhen snow is spotless white Dot-midges dartAbove the snowAnd sport to their delight? ComatoseHave kept aliveUntil the sun burns down Then they spinWithin the glareIn which their shadows drown How compellingIs the willIn which these midges thrive By such a willBeyond our willWe dead will come alive Pavel November 21, 2017

50


HOW STRANGE Plucked and then abandoned on the dayWhen those two-legged servants went away,The tree of good and evil stands and waits,Eternity is long, does not grow late Forever there six hours after noon,West the sun and east the risen moonInterrupted, not to shift again,Abolished is the sense of now and then Time becomes a dragonfly in amber,Nothing moves although it can remember—When will they return and be the same,Innocent as when they gave us names? The serpent offered death and it was sour—How strange that something tasted can devour Pavel November 22, 2017

51


THE WINTER SUN I offered to pray for a man named KevinIn gloom from late stage renal cancerThe side effects of treatment grievous Once I met a Catholic priestWhose doctors told him he would dieFrom heart disease in some few weeks Petitioning a Polish nunAn intimate of Jesus’ graceWhen in life—she was deceased— He heard his doctor tell him then:Ron, you have a friend somewhereYour heart disease has disappeared If he was a blatant sinnerAnd some assert that he was oneWho was Christ the savior of? Did He not say He came to healThe sick and not the healthy of us?Lord Jesus Christ, lay down the weight Of your poor suffering servant KevinMy self not worthy to be heardAnd yet Your will be done to us Who is worthy of such lightIn this dark world in which we touchThe walls of our mortality? Who are we to ask of YouThe favor of immortal lightAnd yet you are the winter sun Pavel November 23, 2017

52


THE ERA OF THE SOUL This is how the good Lord made usWe are ice and we are mudMud became the flesh of promiseMelted ice became the Flood Melted ice became the rainThat mounted steaming to the skyThen it fell as rain againThe deserts changed to sea from dry Now we humans turn to iceThe blood that flowed becoming thick,Thoughts as well of ParadiseFreezing as the race grows sick But we can carve ourselves at lastThe era of the soul is past Pavel November 24, 2017

53


TAKE WHAT YOU ARE GIVEN I received the chrism—Take what you are given—He held it in a pouchMade of the hard blue sky Unwilling you may be—Receive the mystery—It is the oil of greetingFor when you must die Those who love you waitTo meet you at the gateAnointing you with lightTo this we testify We are those who comeTo cross you with a thumbSo we are appointedWith Love you are anointed Pavel November 26, 2017

The GardenPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

54


FOR ONE AND FOR ALL The five thousand dollars that Bob won at pokerWent for his coke habit leaving him broker,Not for the mortgage, the children’s new clothesMost of the money was stuffed up his nose The boy of fifteen, the oldest and toughestAlready strung out, with a tab at the druggist,Twitches his head and denounces his fatherTo a man in a car who might be his pusher His mother conceived him when she was his ageAddiction-confined in a drug-addict’s cage,Whether in jail or whether set freeNot in maturity older than he This is infection for one and for allThe signs of a system’s decline and downfall Pavel November 28, 2017

55


AS SAMSON PULLED A TEMPLE DOWN

As Samson pulled a temple downWhen hair was scissored from his crown,As Samson squandered his eyesight—(Delilah baiting with delight) We moderns power-tempted are(The trap that’s sprung is nuclear)So we will pull our cities down,New York and Paris, London town Moscow, Cairo and Beijing,Tokyo to destruction bring—We are a Samson to bring allThe temples we have built to fall Because our power is our weakness,Strength than lowliness is less Pavel November 29, 2017

56


THE RUT

They rush the doesDrool and foamTheir lips blown out in bugle calls

The does retreatNot estrus-fullWaiting for the fertile time

In spaces where they feel confinedBig stags confrontA man who travels on the trail

Brace their bodiesChallenge withA stare of steady confrontation

The hiker thrusts his walking stickAbove his headAnd shouts a warning—go, retreat It is myself who challengesMy shadow selfAlone, inside


57


MY FORM

He carved me out of ice, a formImmobile with a difference,I could move when I got warm,Creaturely and I had sense

Awake he said, awake from sleepHere is the world that I have made,I give it to you not to keep,Flesh can melt, be not afraid When you have become the seaWhen you have become the rainYou will rise, return to Me,The spirit ocean will remain


Ice ManPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

58


CARD SHARP

Watch the man—he’s got the money card -Focus on the deck, he shuffles hard,Queen of Hearts is often the preferred,How quick it riffles by, the deck is blurred

Bet that you can find your heart’s desire,Dexterity, the shuffle is on fire,Pigeons never win a single handThe cards are always under his command

Even if you bet a thousand daysAnd on each day you bet a thousand plays,You’d never find the Queen, she’s fifty-twoThe other fifty-one are meant for you

The chiseler is older than you thinkAnd he can shuffle faster than you blink

Pavel December 1, 2017

Card SharpPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

59


THE SPIRITS OF THE LOST

I saw there was a pond of ice—He said to me: Take this device,A wooden handle and a spade,Skim the cover with that blade I slid the blade beneath the lidOf ice and lifted so it slidAway in pieces large and little,Some were thick and some were brittle Of all the work this your partSkim and clear the frozen heart—Many others you may clearFrozen with the frost of fear

Even though a thaw may comeStill the spirit can be numb—Choose a city of the frostWhere live the spirits of the lost


60


NO ONE CAN HUNT GOD

“In a certain senseNature is God”Said the monk-heretic

Why not worship a snow goose,Praise the goose instead of God?Who knows the answer?

The hunter knowsWho rests his double paddleDrifting on the black water No one can hunt GodBut God hunts the hunterUntil the hunter finds Him


61


JOSEPH, PLEASE BE CAREFUL SIR

Joseph, please be careful sirHerod is a jealous cur,His kennel is a lavish palaceHe’s Caesar’s dog, and envious

Please get ready for your journeyPregnant Mary on the donkey—Joseph is a carpenterA foreman and a contractor

In her womb is God’s own SonHow can it be since God is one?He is the wish that God expressedTo be milk-fed at Mary’s breast

How can it be He can be fedOn human milk then wheaten bread—How to cry and laugh and sleep?Joseph, safely Jesus keep

The ridge-top road to BethlehemIs cold and rough, be kind to them,Wrap them both in warm sheep’s wool—Alas for us, the inn is full

Then find a space inside the stableA donkey’s manger for a table—Child of glory, Child of woeA Man to hear the third cock crow


62


WHAT ROYAL POWER?

Made to slumber by the rhythmOf the gentle donkey’s gaitDid that infant in the wombDream of heaven or His fate?

Did His father feel the bellyOf His Mother, sense Him shift?Mary does the Child seem heavyIs He arduous to lift?

Journey to the House of BreadThere to give the Savior birth,Free the living and the dead,Peace, good will to all the Earth

What royal power could preventThe Child of heaven, heaven-sent?


63


TO SHOW A GREAT LIGHT

They two traveled quickly from NazarethResting by daylight to gather their breath—Young Mary was heavy to carry the ChildAnd she a slight person, so modest and mild

In moonlight, on hillsides, the broken limestoneGleamed in reflection like bare human bone,Old Joseph, near dozing, near dreaming, saw thenThe dead of Ezekiel rising again

Drawn by the Child in the womb of the VirginAs she passed with the burden she carried of heaven—And the night round about them so wide and so deepSeemed like a sentry their safety to keep

With a star like a guardian over their headsTo show a great light to the new risen dead


64


BEZALEL

Along the way that led to BethlehemThe western sky took fire with a foilAt sunset on the ridge line of the wayAs golden as the work of Bezalel

Who overlaid the Ark with grandest goldAs bright as these unsullied wraiths of wonderLasting only moments in the dusk,Reminding Mary of another splendor

The messenger who seemed at first a manWho begged of her a most astounding favorBut as he spoke became a golden columnA gracious voice, a miracle of grandeur

These clouds reminded her of GabrielBut of this light no human words can tell


65


GOD HIMSELF

Who are these two? An older man,A pregnant girl no older thanEighteen or even younger still—We have no empty rooms to fill

Put them some place out of sightOf wealthy guests to spend a night,The stable has a space for them—This is no flop—it’s Bethlehem

Make sure they pay you in advance,Those two might skip so take no chance,We have our status to preserve—We’re David’s town—they have their nerve

God Himself could find no bed—Put them in the barn instead


66


HE CAUGHT ON FIRE

I saw on that high dreadful hillWhere heaven-life was earnedThe Devil drive the iron in—He said: Now take your turn

Handed me the implementWhich with to pound the nail,Asked what I was waiting for—Strike and do not fail

I gripped the hammer in my handThe flesh of Christ beneathAnd felt the force of his command –He bared his gleaming teeth

I threw it down, the hammer brokeHe caught on fire, then was smoke


67


WHILE HEROD SLEPT

While Herod slept he dreamed the skyPredicted when he was to die—Configurations that he readProphesied he would be deadOnce the Son of God was born—Or so the planets seemed to warn

When he woke his couch was wetWith copious and frigid sweat—He grasped a mirror, held it near—Sometimes knowing eyes appearStaring from behind one’s head,The faces of the wakened dead

He saw nothing but the roomYet there was a sense of doom—So then he called for his physiciansAccompanied by shrewd magiciansAnd there were three come from Iran,That strange surprising mystic land

They said when Herod questioned them:A Child is born in BethlehemAnd we have come to bear the news,He is the Sovereign of the Jews—A star above Him is the signThat He is graced to be divine

But Herod hid his jealousy“Go and bring back news to meSo I can travel where he keeps—Tell me when He wakes and sleepsAnd who is with Him and how manyGuards He has if He has any”


68


A BLAZING STAR

They passed some curious shepherds on the way,Rough men with coats as shaggy as their ramsWho only looked without a word to say—Around their necks they wore their new-born lambs

With crooks of olive drew that way and thisThe stubborn sheep by tugging on their legsWhich off their balance essayed stubbornness,On haunches even like a thing that begs

One hairy shepherd raised his crook to showA blazing star that shone above the townAs if to point a proper way to go—The starlight sent a glow along the ground

As if to make a highway or a roadAlong which brilliant silver starlight flowed


69


GO AND PRAISE THE LORD IN BETHLEHEM

Across the world a kind of dawn at midnightThe shepherds see a light where there should beDeep darkness and a shining of starlightThe track of shooting stars and mystery

The shepherds gaze across the rugged hillsides—Familiar with a moonless midnight sky,The shadows where the ranging jackals hide:“Look, my brothers, look and tell us why”

A glow as if a dawn-light on the riseThat spills across the landscape and the stonesThat for a moment overwhelms their eyes—A sound of spirits—glory is their throne

The sleeping world awakes, a Child is bornTo conquer death, His diadem is thorn,But He will bring you peace, good will to men,Go and praise the Lord in Bethlehem,A donkey’s manger in a barn His bed -Arise you men of night, arise you dead!


70


THIS NIGHT

The house of God this night a common stableThe altar is a donkey’s meal of strawThe great Menorah burning is a candleThe swallows in the rafters chant the law

The shepherds with their cracked and swollen handsAssume a pose of prayer and bow their headsThere are no pews and everybody standsExcept the Virgin—Jesus has been fed

Glory is His swaddling though the shadowsCrouch around the Baby as he lies,Promising infinities of sorrows,And yet to all the powers a surprise

That death will never hold Him in its gripThis Infant of a shepherds’ fellowship


71


WEALTHY PERSIANS

Wealthy Persians by the look of themCome to visit us in Bethlehem,Naturally there’s room for them to stayImagine telling them to go away

They’re going where? They’re stopping at the shedWhere those transients have found a bedBetween the ox and donkey in the straw?Why would rich men stop there—what’s the draw?

Here come shepherds too, who stink of dung,Just to catch a whiff, lose half a lung,Look, they’re kneeling, and those aliensAre kneeling too—can shepherds be their friends?

There’s a baby that they’re bowing toAs if they were a prince’s retinue,They’re taking out some gifts—it looks like myrrh—Frankincense and gold for him and her

No, it’s for the infant, so it seems,See the pile of precious, how it gleams!How it makes the baby glow, that gold,How much is a baby—is it sold?

All the while the shepherds and the wiseWere those alone who saw through the disguiseOf God in glory come to be the SonOf Mary and the Lord of everyone


72


GOD AND THE DEVIL

God and the Devil threw down cardsSuit for suit and word for word,One by one they threw down hardThe Ace of Diamonds came up third

Here’s a pretty card for youIt sparkles, said the burning Brute—Nothing that you say is trueSaid God, throw down another suit

Down came hearts, down came spadesDown came clubs—I win the potSaid the Fiend—my fortune’s made—No, said God, you drew what’s not

These pictures are but pictures stillBut only I can make them live—I give them life by My good willAnd only I can save, forgive

Here I draw the Queen of HeartsI call her Mary, and I drewOf all these cards the living part,From Her the Son, the world made new

Mary bore My only SonWho rules the world by My command,The stake is life, the game is doneI will not deal another hand


73


IN THE FACE OF THE HOLY IMMORTAL ONE

First, he stopped paying his taxesBecause he had other expensesTo pay off on his businesses,Then because they were failingHe arsoned one of them down

He sits at the back of the churchWhen he comes for daily Mass,But today he sat at the frontKnocking his knuckles togetherNervously, stared at the altar

What does he say to JesusAnd what does the Lord reply?Who can know what God repliesTo a creature of such miniscule sizeOne who no sooner born, he dies?

No younger than I am, so he’s old -The unburned businesses were sold—He said: A life goes by so quicklyWhere does it go to? he said to me,In the face of the Holy Immortal One


74


BLESS GOD’S LOVELY FALLING SNOW

Bless God’s lovely falling snowPure and crystalline and slow—Life come down through time and space,Matchless crystals unreplaced

I am one who falls through time,One who stops, by sun sublimes,Gem of water in one stateThrough the next disintegrates

Time dissolves me in the seaOr in the forest covers treesLimb by limb to form a manSpeechless being who can stand

Snow of time the rhythmic showPure symmetric falling snow


75


LIKE TIME ITSELF

Rabbit tracks, fresh-fallen snowWhen I got up I saw it goAcross the yard, a well-grown thingIt stretched at length—I saw it spring—The population crashes nowBut those near us survive somehowOn hedges and the winter kaleForage that will never failThe sole survivor seems well fedIf doe she is she will be bredSo that in April there will beBaby cottontails to seeThe cats will hunt them, they are preyBut still there will be more in May—The coil of chromosomes unwound—Like time itself it makes no sound


76


UNTIL KINGDOM COME

In this mild fall their coats were thick,They overheated and were sick—The deer stayed in their yards, were notAbroad to forage, were not shot

But turkeys, tougher, outward goWhere barberries and wild grapes grow—Take forage that the weak deer willNot eat and so they will be killed

But if it snows and thaws, the topWill crust, so through the deer will dropTo break their bones and likely lieOr limp, the same the deer will die

Fate is fate and law is lawBe it freeze or be it thaw—Return to equilibrium—A balance until Kingdom come


77


FROM END TO END OF TIME

If we could see the coil of time stretched outFrom end to end and all the fractions of it—Unity and harmony as oneConsummated even as begun—

I said to God, my Lord, my time is briefI am the failing vine, the falling leafHe said: Observe the sky and see the crowdOf dead who rise to Me who were not proud

Never-ending host of dead arisenSphere on sphere of spirit, burning vision,Each concentric sphere a living flameAnd every color blended sings My Name

Lord of Hosts, the living not the deadFrom end to end of time—the Lord God said


78


NO PLACE TO HIDE

Cities filled with docile soulsTheir eyes like glowing crimson coals,Buildings strong as stainless vaultsImpregnable against assaults

Each citizen a name, an appHeld but happy in a trapCarries out the ruling planThis is the destiny of Man

The height, the weight, the DNAEvery thought, the words they sayA destiny of full controlEach citizen a docile soul

Resistance would be deicideAnd who would need a place to hide?


79


MASTER AND PRESERVER

What stranger you may meet,Traveler who knows?The village of EmmausThe destiny you chose

Who is this beside youWho goes an easy pace,Have you seen anotherAlike in speech and face?

We knew beloved JesusCrucified before,The Romans’ bloody businessWill there be any more?

Can it be dead JesusAlive along the road,Flesh and blood beside us,The length He always strode?

The tempo and the tokensThe manner of His speech,The way that He had spokenWhen He set out to teach

Can He be the same One?The dead can never riseBut here is He beside usAnd this is how He strides

Come and sit beside usJesus of the breadMaster and PreserverShow You are not dead


80


WHAT IS HELD WITHIN THE HUMAN MIND

Some are ponds into which streamlets seepSome are oceans blistered foaming wild and deepSome are rivers leaping running rough and wildSome are estuaries placid, smooth and mildSome are reservoirs of rainfall black and coldUnderneath the desert, static, oldMinds of human beings, turbid, clearTurbulent with anger, foamed with fearThe sign of seas and rivers is the signOf what is held within the human mindVigorous the motion of the streamThat moves within the ocean of the dreamThe current of the spirit and the willIn warriors dynamic, mystics still


81


THE HAPPINESS OF GOD

Into the little shed where there were keptSmall cattle and the nesting swallows sleptNot only shepherds entered to adoreNor magic men their valuables to pourBut village sick assaulted by their illsWhose fires could not drive away their chillsThe paralyzed who crept into the shedThe seizure-ridden, even from their bedThe speechless and afraid, the lame and blindThose who had gone lost beyond the mindEveryone who came to touch and seeThe happiness of God’s own infancySerenity relieving their distressThe jealousy of power, powerless Pavel December 25, 2017

82


A LOVE GIFTFor Nancy

On a frost white day in DecemberCold and hard belowShe spreads out fresh green timothyAs a gift across the snow

For the gray-coat half-tame cottontailThat keeps her companyWhen she fills a hanging feederFor the wintering chickadee

It is a present onlyThe human heart conceives,Not for bait or harvestBut a love-gift that she leaves

For the innocent twitch of the earsWhen the cottontail appears


83


IT HAS NO POWER

It has no powerWhat has been given life remains aliveThe enemy is deathExpelled from heavenRepelled by fireIt clings to the exiled livingThat which suffers is aliveAnd the suffering is exileBut nothing which lives can die

It has no power over lifeDeath may not pass the flameWithin the garden wall the rivers runThe living come together in the cool of the eveningThe Master approves and praises themBut where are the two I left here with you?They have tasted death, the bitter pulpAnd they know what it isWill they ever return?

When the messenger lays down the swordThe weapon that slays deathWhen there is no more death to repelThose two will returnIt has no powerIn the land of the livingWhere none can ever dieThey will be my guardiansTo love My land of the living


84


HOLY GROUND

I have a gift for youI am not myself the giftThose others bearing giftsAre not the gifts themselvesOnly One is suchThe bearer and the giftHe is and we are notUntil he gives HimselfAnd gives us to ourselvesHere, He says, you areI give you beingBeloved spiritTo burn as I have burnedA light to find within the desert of abandonment


85


NEW SOUL, NO CHARGE

Not as if they were on saleBut on display though not retail,Each garment of the finest lightNot burning fire but star-bright

As one who passed could stop and fit,First light to light was apposite,A match that had been made beforeA spirit suit but something more

Not needful to be tried on twiceFor which fulfillment was the price,Bespoke as it was custom-madeFor which the old light was in trade

For each a garment that was foundNot cut but from God’s love unwound


86


THE TOWERS OF ETERNITY

Triumph over dying won,The breath of God above the deep,Two worlds were made instead of one

The second lived beside the firstA city of eternal lifeWhile death the rotting body burst

A city shattered when He roseA broken Sodom of the deadDressed up in pitiful grave clothes

The citizens of one are blindAlthough they live beside the LightThere is no Temple they can find

But when they come to life at lastThe optic nerve of love will seeThe towers of eternity


87


AMAZING GRACE

As I was leaning back and sleepingA spirit or the Virgin kneltTo feed me from a vial of blessingLiquid for the pain I felt

The wound of battle with the forcesOf disorder, entropy,The paralyzing of the muscles,Seizure of the will of me

A tube four-sided, framed of metal,Liquid that I did not know,She let the potion, she was careful,A healing and a loving flow

She knelt and let me sip and tasteThe mending of amazing grace


88


WATCH THEN FOR THE HILLS

The hills have disappearedBehind a veil of snowMy vision is wind-sheared

These hills behind a veilHide a bloody crownEach hand and foot a nail

God as one of usKilled to rise againOr there is nothing to discuss

Then move into the stormDisappearA form and then no form

But if the hills appearThe storm has passedStarlight comes, the sky must clear

Watch then for the hillsThe storm is deathBut starlight does not kill

Pavel January 1, 2018

89


MY LIFE A SINGLE DAY I SPEND

Would it be possible to walkThe highway to EmmausEngaging Christ in friendly talkNot then but present tense?

Have I met the Christ beforeAnd will I see againNot Him in graveclothes that He wore,But now, alive, not then?

I think that I have walked the dayAnd watched the shadows stretchUntil by dusk they fled awayAs if the dark to fetch

My life a single day I spendTo walk my Savior to the end


90


NEW CREATION

So many tracks across the snowSome are those I do not know,The trailing of a heavy hemAcross the field of Bethlehem

Feet set flat and plantigradeThat something furry-toed has made,A printing of two narrow feetWith toes apart and heels that meet

A field filled up with passers-byArriving somehow from the sky,Single printed then departedEnding only where they started

Creatures of a story toldOf new creation from the old—But I have seen the signs of themAs shepherds did in Bethlehem

The curve and sweeping of a wingAs joy to all the world they sing


91


WHERE DO ALL THE SONG BIRDS HIDE?

Branches rock from side to sideWhere do all the song birds hide?Bodies swell with down and feather,Bitter frost and savage weather

Some will perish in the nightNothing in the dark takes flight,In the covert of the hedgeEver green becomes the fledge

Evergreen becomes the nestProtects the blood within the breast,Song birds in this desert frostOf godless prayer-less winter lost

Can only huddle in the calmsOf green and over-shadowed psalms


92


THEY DO NOT OPEN UP THEIR EYES

The Kingdom came but few perceived—Alongside God were hanged two thievesYet of the two there was but oneBecame aware of God’s own Son

Then of us now perhaps but fewAre added to the ones that knew—A bright domain on every sideStill visible—it does not hide

Still visible, we do not see,There may be one of two or threeOr one of ten or twenty more—This world with that one wages war

Blindness is its strategy—Your Christ, it says, we do not see,While on each side the towers riseThey do not open up their eyes


93


BUT ALL ARE ONE

I built a wind chime out of ironSeven bars to sing with heaven,At first the wind was calm and silentThen the north wind cold and violent

The crash and chorus of the galeAn octave on the heaven-scaleCombined in iron harmoniesOr moved apart in melodies

The voice was mine that filled it outThe wind and I how we did shout,Every soul and every starRejoiced with us though near or far

There is no faraway or nearBut all are one and all can hear


94


BUT ALL ARE ONE

I built a wind chime out of ironSeven bars to sing with heaven,At first the wind was calm and silentThen the north wind cold and violent

The crash and chorus of the galeAn octave on the heaven-scaleCombined in iron harmoniesOr moved apart in melodies

The voice was mine that filled it outThe wind and I how we did shout,Every soul and every starRejoiced with us though near or far

There is no faraway or nearBut all are one and all can hear


95


ASK FOR DIRECTIONS

On a train moving through the ruined cityGirders split like stalks of strawProtrude through the wounded sidesOf explosion-ruptured buildings

A stout woman with a desolate expressionA desert of a faceSits facing forward on the trainIgnoring the ruin that passes by

We are all facing forwardAs we move through the ruins of the worldThe past has not gone byIt has been bombed and scattered

Ask for directions and she will sayWe have not reached it yet


96


IN GLORY TAKE SUCH LOVE

When hope for hope there is no moreSit with us and watch the snowDissolve, the dormant green grass show

The young ones born before their timeDoves and sparrows leave the treeTo pick the ripe seeds that melt free

See the metaphor in this:We shall leave this life, the nest,We new-fledged ones, the risen blessed

Who find eternal life, the seed,In glory take such love, and feed


97


THIS IS HOW WE LEARN TO PRAY

Over these bare beloved hillsA surge from the south as winter startsMist in the fields, the hollows filled

Soil appears, the hillsides brownAnd all the little frozen streamsGone liquified for now run down

Pulse by pulse the years go onLike prayers of mighty winter wordsFreeze and thaw an antiphon

Come join with us they seem to sayEndure until the weather changes:This is how we learn to pray


98


WE ARE HER BELOVED ONES

She is the candle and the flameHoly Mary is her name,She is the mother of the LambCall her Mother Miriam

If you are entombed, afraidIf you summon her for aidShe will answer with her gift—Love’s compassion sure and swift

To her love I testifyWhen I thought that I would dieShe answered with a certain signLove of a maternal kind

She is the mother of the LordPierced by grief as if a sword,Those who grieve her daughters, sons,We are her beloved ones


99


THE MANY ROOMS

A mansion built in many stylesGiving shelter from the streetWe have no business there but meet

Loitering in splendid hallsColumns rising though decayedGaping walls the weather made

Chronologic potpourrisCurtain walls and their debrisTowers with their arrow slits

It isn’t Revelation TownThat has from heaven floated down—At least the neighborhood is safe

I visited the other daySaw you there and heard you chatGossip about this and that

No one knows when work beginsThe house is open to the windsThe many rooms are vast and dark

Who knows what within residesOr what inside the mansion hidesWaiting to reveal itself?


100


BY FLESH AND BONE

I am of the dry boned onesIn the valley of Ezekiel,The Lord enfleshed me and I roseSkin and tendon, cell by cell

And when I am returned to thatUnfleshed and bony relict form,He will again transfer His bloodTo make my body live and warm

He will return me to that state,It is His power to create,All life and living comes from HimIn every bone and every limb

To do His work, not of my ownBut of His will, by flesh and bone


101


AND THEN I SLEPT

The Adoration of the LambWhose blood spilled out into a chaliceAnd I was there to watch and kneel

The saints and martyrs watched, around HimAngels knelt and swung their censersClouds of fragrant incense rose

Adore the Lamb who offers lifeHe is the Paschal sacrificeWhose blood was painted on the lintels

Death is roaming through the worldBut Christ’s sweet blood prevents the onslaughtThrough the doorway of the soul

It was the setting of the sunAnd the first-born of eternityLay down their lives, prepared for sleep

Saints and martyrs and the angelsKnelt and loved the bleeding LambAnd I did too, and then I slept


102


WHERE THEY ARE WE DO NOT KNOW

Seven are the days of the weekAnd the days of the year are numberedDefend yourselves against them if you can

Lift sunlight like a bar of ironCrush the seconds of a minute in your fistRaise the moon above your head

What can we do then which is our own?To love and speak kindlyTo the Traveler on the road

He will explain the sunset and worldAnd when he breaks the new-made breadHe will reveal His face of light

But there are those who would not listenGoing on into the shadowsAnd where they are we do not know


103


THE OWL AND THE HARE

Creatures of the snowAs white as white can beThe owl and the foxThe ones you cannot see

The furtive snowshoe hareAs if it were not there,Rhymer of the whiteWho vanishes from sight

As if the blood were notInside them red and hot,The outer white and coldA different story told

You see them by the trackNor shadow do they lackThe same as you and meWhose soul you cannot see

But still the soul is thereThe owl and the hare


104


A WINTER DAY

So cold the cowbirds wonder whyTheir frozen shadows cannot fly,Adhere to snow in shreds of black—The sunrise stops, the sun slides back

Do not say I overstateThe rising moon will not inflateBut shrivels in the frozen east—The fleecy clouds of dawn unfleece

With cold so cold that nothing movesThe sunlight freezes on the rooves,Spectrums splayed across the snowContract to bands of indigo

I think I may be getting old—A winter day and I am cold


105


BE SILENT, MY SOUL

Be silent, my soul, be stillSalvation is not a skillBut the mercy of God the Son,His merciful will be done

In the shade of the fruitful treeYou shall wait for the food to be,He will offer the apple of joyAnd the serpent He will destroy

To the garden you both shall goAnd the life of eternity know,Friend alongside to befriend,His love for you never to end

My soul be never afraidYou are what His love has made


106


ONCE I MET A MAN WHO SAW THE SUN EXPLODE

Once I met a manWho saw the sun explodeOr so it seemed to him

A Soviet H-bombOf 50 megatonsFrom a watching US ship

Beneath the sea’s perspectiveThe blast rose up in fireColossal detonation

There is another sunBeneath our soul’s horizonWhose disk we cannot see

And yet there is an auraThe sets the soul on fireAnd prints the retina

With streaks of spirit fireBut the star of holy wonderStays hidden from our sight

But one day it will riseAs it rose above the crècheWhere the holy Infant slept

And as the shepherds cameWe too will approachTo praise and not go blind


107


THE LAND OF REAL MEN

They came from New Guinea to visit DCFor lectures about anthropology,These people from lowlands and towering tropicsTo display to the public such foreign exotics

What struck them hard was the swift underground,To enter the depth where corpses are found,To travel for miles through the land of the deadWhere the elders go afterward filled them with dread

To the land of the spirits whose pigment is whiteWho sit side by side in the carriage of night,Descending to dusk like the bats to the treesTo die not by sickness or spear but degrees

Then to desire the sun and ascend—Let us return to the land of real men


108


SONGBIRDS BAFFLED IN THE SNOW

Last night I saw a Russian trawlerAs from a freighter long ago,A Moscow flat with freezing water,A songbird puzzled in the snow

A kitchen with a three-ring burner,A run-down Russian fishing boat,A papered port-hole, honey bees,Pauper Christ without a coat

A shower and a pumped commodeRooms run down and nearly bare,Faded blue paint, peeling plasterShowing centuries of wear

Instructions left that no one readsFor navigation to someplace,Tourists walking here and thereBut of the crew there is no trace

Russia, Russia, where are you?In two small rooms an artisanWho builds precision orreriesLike solar systems, moving gems

And on one wall the Tsar, Tsarina—Icons of the Romanovs,Imperial, two royal saints,Blizzards braying, cooing doves

Nothing here is ever simpleThe coffins of the Tsars also,Cathedral of the ArchangelsAnd songbirds baffled by the snow


109


WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

His supplier came looking for him last nightBut the house was unlighted and the dealer had skipped—No light, no heat, and the drugs had gone missing,He’d given him credit for sales he expected

He picked up a flashlight—went on through the yardIn the dark of the night and nobody there,Hurling his partly smoked cigarette outwardAn angry small arc in the half-lighted street

Sat down in the car in the passenger seatA driver and two enforcers were with him,The town isn’t large, it won’t be too hardTo locate the dealer, demand satisfaction

He’ll want him to give back the drugs or the money,But the money is spent and the drugs have been soldAnd what happens next is what was expectedEven before they were both ever born


110


ONLY LOVE

Above the ground and helpless, swift, unwilling,The cold wind coming forward dark and chilling,The winter oak leaves tumble by twig by headSpinning, sliding, gliding, driven dead

The children led to Fatima were shown,Of how the loveless damned in Hell were blown,By violent winds of jealousy and hate,Revenge and greed, blank loneliness their fate

I see a house deserted on this streetWhere spirits disembodied, lost can meetThese are the souls abandoned by the restWho search for liberation from the blessed

They talk in echoes copying true speechWhich only love can resurrect and teach


111


WHEN I WOKE UP THIS MORNING

When I woke up this morningI could remember nothingIt was almost like being born a second timeBut born at the age of seventy-nine

Perhaps this is resurrection without the blessingNo angels at the entrance to the tombNo footprints in the dew of morningOn the moist soil of the garden

But I think there had been an encounterWith the spirits gone before usTo return to a world without memoriesSo empty in comparison

And then I remembered my nameAnd I saw my face in the mirror—But where have I been and whom have I spoken to?Let it be known, somewhere, somehow


112


NO ONE HAS SEEN IT

Enter the winter and into a thawDone are the days of the wet and the raw,Mallards in wingbeat wheel over the meadowThe sun is beclouded and feeble the shadows

A man with a fishing rod slogs to the riverWhat can he catch today, muddy the water,Catfish and crappie asleep on the bottomBass are too sluggish and trout aren’t common

But who’s to deny him the pleasure of trying,The weather is mild and the mallards are flying,The fisherman hopes and the earth is at easeAnd if he draws suckers he won’t be displeased

But there is a catch in the sea, in the deepSomething more potent and fearsome asleep,No one can catch it with hook and with rodAnd no one has seen it but Jonah and God


113


HOW STRANGE IT IS

Have you seen a flock of crowsMob a hawk?—they dive and close,Tough survivors, blue-black birds,The sounds they make are simple words:Rally, gather and protect,Find the hawk and intersect

Crows and hawks may also bluffSpread their wings, survivors, tough—Also something we can do:Humans lie and tell what’s true—Then what’s the difference betweenUs, what does being human mean?

There is no time as time we knowFor any hawk, or any crow,Nor good nor evil, to surviveIs what they have—to keep alive—How strange it is that we were madeTo know a lie and be afraid


114


BURIED IT

They left the children’s toys behind, the playhouseArtfully constructed out of wood,Stairs and levels and a sloping roofStill weathering, abandoned where it stood

Deflated plastic pools and bicyclesA sofa and a double-decker bed,Owed a year of mortgage payments soPossessions were abandoned and they fled

If only they had left themselves behind,Addictions and the felonies committed,Terms they spent in jail and drugs consumed,Crimes for which they never were convicted

Left the sadness where it can’t be foundBuried it and left it underground


115


WAS THAT THE WAY?

It was a game in which they hurled and caught a lightA tennis ball in size but orange-yellow bright,No teams that I could see but individualsKeeping lights in air but sometimes one would fall

I tossed one light too hard and that one hit the floorBut then no consequence to that, there was no score,The mood was not disparaging or rivalrousNo competition making minus envy plus

Light from light to light the game was on and playedBut all within the room the recreation stayed—What would happen if someone caught more than one?Would such an object then resemble some bright sun?

Pressed together, light and light, was that the wayThe stars were made, the ending of the angels’ play?


116


UNTIL THE FINAL DAY

If all could see the one true faceWhat would it look like put in place?The scowl of a demon rage?The gentle stillness of a sage?The naked blankness of a skull?The heavy echo of the dull?The brainless appetite of lust?The needy childishness of trust?The sharpness of intelligence?The keenness of a hunter’s sense?The soft perception of the wise?The mask of cleverness and lies?Eyes of kindness showing loveWhich even blindness has much of?But there are some who will delayTo look until the final day


117


THE SECRET BURROW

The snow as skin, a slant-ward sun,The winter war has just begun,The freezing of the human soulDownward blizzards from the Pole

Of InaccessibilityUntil the snow is all we see,Rhyme is Reason, Reason rhymeSnow will fall and snow is time

Across the Allegheny FrontDeer will die, coyotes hunt,The black bear sleeps beneath the groundSnowfall deadens every sound

I have snowshoed on the top,By dawn the snow and wind will stopBut till the sunrise I must goAcross the flowing crystal snow

Above the sighing sleeping bearThe secret burrow of the hare

Pavel February 1, 2018

118


THE WARRANT FOR HIS ARREST

The soldiers came to arrest himWhen Mark had finished the lineOf the verse we have verifiedAs being his own composition

The soldiers came in to arrest himLike Peter before in a raid:“The women said nothing to anyoneBecause they were afraid”

The women who’d come to the tombTo anoint the dead CrucifiedProphet of NazarethWhom everyone thought had died

The women afraid and speechlessThe tomb of the Christ was empty,The only one being on guard thereA white robed angel sentry

Mark never finished his gospel,Interrupted at work in his cell,Peter had gone before himAs primordial legends tell

Mark never finished his gospel,A warrant for his arrestFollowed wherever he traveledAs the martyrs of Christ can attest


119


I AM THE WORD

An old man’s beard, the ground turns white,Green grass sleeping out of sight,Unlike me it will still grow,The years behind me fell like snow

Down, still down the winter veilObliterating all detail,Roots that sleep will stretch and rise,If nothing lives then nothing dies

Not enough to solace me,I am no sleeping apple tree,The spruce, the maple or the oak,I am the word that Jesus spoke

To Lazarus the corpse, arise:Come out and open up your eyes


120


AGAINST THE SHADOWS ON THE ROAD

Only one walk to EmmausTowards dusk and supper and a house—One afternoon, an hour or soAnd who was He, who was to know?

Who can play and play againOne afternoon and then an end—He gives us morsels, crumbs of lightSweeps them off and out of sight

But memory to keep insideOf Master Christ they said had diedBut walked again with us, who strodeAgainst the shadows on the road

Who tore the loaf and passed it round—His flesh it was, a bleeding wound


121


YOU HAVE KEPT A RECORD OF…

Lord, I am so slow but YouFind the first light to the end,One instant and you see it allNor does the seeing light beam bend

For You one time, one place You see,Our lives as well that interlock—One leader and one symphony,One measure that You keep, one clock This morning in the snow I sawTracks of rabbit interspersedWith printings of another paw—A living poem verse by verse

So is my little history—Passed and gone the trace of me,But You will keep a record ofHowever many times I loved


122


THERE IS A WAY

I will not die in bed, in peaceNor by the grace of the police,But let me venture to exploreThe granite entrails inside war

There is a cavern in the EastIn which a troll king gives a feast,Chews the bones of day and nightWith every sunrise takes a bite

Casts the scraps outside the cave,It’s not enough to be so braveAs to approach to enter in—To squeeze inside one must be thin

There is a way between the cracksThat even clever people lackBut those who throw their lives awayCan squeeze between nightfall and day

And there confront the king of trollsWho dines on life, his death beholds


123


FOREVER

I saw the Christ Child standing in the cold and snowIt was He who spoke to them—they did not know—He said: Behold I come to you, and I will dieAs surely as the wind must blow, the snow must fly,But as the star has risen so too I will riseSo come to me by starlight, it is wordless wise

Then He disappeared to them as soon He wouldIn breaking of the bread to those who understood,For He is everywhere and nowhere, young and old,He is the Christ Child standing in the midnight cold,There in the beginning, now and at the endThe alpha and omega who can break and mend

Break and mend and die and rise forever soThe Christ Child with the shepherds in the cold and snow


124


PUT UP FOR SALE

The house is cold, no light, no heatThe snow is gray beneath his feetThe doors are shut—they have new locks—The way inside the house is blocked

In weeks they’ll put it up for saleHis mother always pays his bailBut not this mortgage, much too high,He stands outside and wonders why

He’s always on the outside, whatHe needs and wants forever not,His wife will leave him once againNot if, perhaps she will, but when

There is a way he does not know,He stands beside it in the snow


125


HEALTHY YOUNG CATTLE

How happy they must be, their feed is ampleRich and fortifying for these cattle,Finish them and feed them quickly tooGrow them twice as fast as once they grew

Breed them first so that they’re all the same,Breed them dumb and happy, pleased and tame,When they are completed, slow and gross,Slaughter them and cut their quarters close

Once they were two-legged and could speak,We taught them that a human is a freak,God was always fiction in the sky,Life is only once and then they die

No livestock are permitted to run freeOr yearn a bit for their humanity


126


DECLARE THE LIGHT

Mute and deaf when I met GodAn ordinary-looking manBut with a glory in his eyesThat could do more than people can

He put His spittle on my tongueHis fingers in my soundless earsWords came tumbling from my lungsAnd from my eyes came thankful tears

I could hear and I could speakHe told me to go on with grace -There was nothing more to seekExcept the glory of His face

That glory sometimes I can seeDeclare the light that speaks to me


127


IT DOES NOT STOP

I gave my blood for every yearThirty-three of them I count,Drop by drop for every life,Who can measure the amount?

Until my veins were shriveled dryBut those who were condemned turned red,I was drained and then I diedWhile they with My red blood were fed

Night went by and saw My tombGlanced aside and passed away,He would not find me there again,Night departed, it was day

Still My blood drips drop by drop,By day and night it does not stop


128


SPACE COLONIES

They moved to another houseThe door to this one openThe floors are soaked with urineThe upstairs commode is missingA hole in the floor and a pipe

Debris on the kitchen counterRubbish on the floorsThe mortgage unpaid for a yearA stench fills up the houseA stream runs through the basement

They both had been dealing drugsBoth have criminal records—Are we talking about a familyOr about our human species?Is the empty house our planet?

And when we move to MarsWill we rubbish that one too? Pavel February 12, 2018

Open HousePhoto by Pavel Chichikov

129


HE DID NOT HAVE TO DIE

He is the One who dwellsWithin a house of lightForever glorious

He did not have to dieSubmitting to the fateOf those whom He created

But knew annihilationExistence at an endA beast’s oblivion

He did not have to dieBut freely came to usIn solidarity

Generous once moreAbundantly He fedThe cold and famished dead


130


WHEN THEY WERE BANISHED

Bird song and a new creationAs on the day when song was made,The sun as bread was freshly risenNone who lived there were afraid

This is My house, the Lord God said,There are no windows but the sky,The sunlight on which you are fedWill make you perch and sing and fly

Then there came another twoAs curious as they were tallWho did not know what Satan knew,That what can fly can also fall

When they were banished song was hushedAs through the groves a cold wind rushed


131


FAMOUS

The latest gossip of the ghostsWho never know they’re dead,How some important people spokeAnd what the stylish said,

Rumors of the insidersAn inner secret ring,The famous and their noticersAnd every tiny king

All forgotten in a yearAt most in a decade,Phantoms that no one would fearA transparent parade

Receding into nothingnessOblivion is their address


132


FORGETTING HOW TO PRAY

Forgetting how to prayThe world has turned grisaille,The snow comes down all dayTakes color from the eye

The traveler unblessedBecomes an empty cloak,The inn without a guestAn egg without a yolk

There is a world insideA world that has no color,Pallor cannot hideWhat praying will discover

Down it comes and growsDay by day it snows


133


THE PERIODICAL ROOM

Off a busy corridorA room that I had seen before,Wood-paneled with a golden lightSubdued, an autumn muted-bright

A woman seated at a tableRead a periodicalIn peaceful silence, safety tooWith not a window for a view

Around the walls were shallow racks—Magazines displayed their backs,A few but maybe many moreThat could appear when beckoned for

The woman reading was immersed,Perusing time that was reversed,The dates and numbers of those pagesComprehensive for all ages

From beginning to the lastOf time as known, the future, past,All were printed, bound and publishedTime accomplished, lived and finished

There she sat and studied time—The room was small but not confined -I thought I knew her, was not sureIf this was space or aperture

How peaceful though to see it allFrom growth’s parabola to fallThat could be studied in one place—I thought I almost knew that face


134


WE BRING OURSELVES

Carnations, Roses, Baby’s Breath once offered at the altarBut now for Lent a bare hedge plant, made ready for a fire,Naked so a voice can speak to Moses in the desert,Not a sign of any green, a flower blooms above it

A flower made of watered-wheat become the flesh of ChristWho was disrobed and crucified, his garment staked for dice—As we are naked in the soul when we appear beforeThe Flesh that never perishes, the Glory we adore

And as we bare ourselves for Him, so He for souls did bareHis vulnerable flesh and blood, no torture was He spared—That we may offer up ourselves in sacrifice in Lent—How precious then His life itself, in love for us was spent

Bare trees without a leaf to show, we bring ourselves to Him,An offering of flesh and soul, not green along the limb


Lenten AltarPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

135


WHOEVER EATS AND DRINKS

You could not make the stars or space,The vacuum’s power, not a trace,Nor seas not land nor any trees,Life or even death, not these

But you can be like Him this way:Believe in love, give it away,Self-giving, even flesh and blood,You who come of breath and mud

A pleasure greater than all elseIt is of God His own heart’s pulseThe beating of which you can feel—The love which even death can heal

The blood within the flesh He gives—Whoever eats and drinks will live


136


WE ARE THERE

Would it be strange to sayThat in the adorationWe already are in heaven?

That in the congregationAre the saints, the Holy MartyrsThe doctors of the Church?

That around us are not shadowsBut living men and womenThe belovèd resurrected?

That the jeweled city TempleHas descended to the meadowBecomes the tabernacle?

That seen upon the altarThe wounding of the LambPours into the cup?

Pours into the cupFrom the piercing He has offeredFrom the wound that we have made?

That angels cense the altarHe absolves the congregationAnd His precious blood is given?


137


I CAME TO WHERE I USED TO BE

I came to where I used to beThere was an oak tree growing therePlanted eighty years with me—We are a complementary pair

I also reach although surprisedTo live, for many others died,But I am not as strong and highThough what I am will never die

This is the seed that I imbed,It will grow tall when I am dead,Other seeds it will disperseI hope for better, not for worse

With leaves that gather, one by one,The wind will touch them to the sun


138


WHY MUST THERE BE RAIN?

The bright sun lost its burning gripOn planetary fellowship,Out went its compelling flameFierce of course but not the same

It could not happen so they saidThe laws of Nature too well bred,Small and shriveled, cool and brown,Then a cold hard rain came down

Lent when we should fast and pray—The dying sun has gone away,Swollen streams and rivers flowLike eyes that run with tears of woe

What and why must there be rainBefore the growing comes again?


139


THE FRUIT

The serpent with an angel faceSlid up to a glassy placeAnd drenched its image with its venomCovered it with dripping poison

Despising what must never beA freak and an anomalyA mixture of two different thingsThat coiled itself in scaly rings

Rage and malice, rage and woeHow could my Master treat me soTo give me natures so distinctAn angel’s and a serpent’s linked

So then it offered Eve the fruitEvil rotting from the root


140


OUR WAYS ARE NOT HIS WAYS

Eleven people huddle in a roomGreat shadows, footsteps listened for outside,The door may burst, the Temple guard come in—Where would those eleven people hide?

The world is filled with God, obeys His will,Christ Himself will enter through the doorAlthough no hinge will swing, or shadow fillThe chamber or a footstep touch the floor

And He will breathe and speak and even eatThough vanishing at will as He arrived,Serve them as He once had washed their feet,Prove by wound and warmth He is alive

Everything is His, both hope and pain,The glory of His face, a dried blood stain


141


IN ONE SAME BREATH

My father’s best friend Pat had diedSo up and down he walkedAnd as he walked he wept:Poor Pat, poor Pat, he cried

And then the Lord Christ said: I also weptFor My friend Lazarus and soBecause you wept you shall be savedAs you mourn him walking to and fro

We weep together for a death—You and I are unifiedBecause you mourn your best friend PatWhom you loved, who also died

Because of him I conquered deathAnd for you all, in one same breath


142


ALL OF TIME IS HIS

Primaries spread like the flaps of an airplaneInto the vernal pool they glideWhich having been filled by vernal rainReceives their landing slide by slide

They raise white spray and breast the waveThey push with their breasts and fold their wingsHow innocent and yet how braveThe fearless skill of living things

A thousand million years have comeTo show these bodies and their knackOf which they are the perfect sumDown to the comic mallard quack

And then like a fleet of only twoThey sail these ancients as if new


143


YOUR CUP OF TEA

Stand on the shore of Lake KyshtymIn the Urals, only for a time,Not more than an hour on the brimPlutonium sits in Lake Kyshtym

Sunk within, it is dangerousTo spend more time at the edge of the lake,Gamma rays are hazardousTo the cells of your flesh and your bones will break

What will happen if there’s a warAnd it’s deadly to be anywhereFor more than an hour, the rain will pourFrom the radiated glowing air

From what will you boil your cup of teaWhen the water runs to the glowing sea?

Pavel March 1, 2018

144


DOUBTING

Nesting eagles brood two eggsIs there no evil, can it be?A March storm sways the nest, the tree

The bole might break, the nest might fallDoes all creation hold its breath?Will there be life, will it be death?

On every single world in spaceIs there suspension of His graceOr is there none?

They are the simple without fearTo each of them His light appearsHis will is done

To all the rest the world grows darkWe question God and stand afraidDoubting that the world was made

Pavel March 2, 2018

145


THE DREADFUL UNDEAD

The nor’easter blew past the walls of the houseIt sounded to him like a jet engine roaringA powerful storm at winter’s ending

Now like a wind the Holy SpiritRoars through the streets—no one sees itBut the few who have lived through a storm before

Where does it take us? I see the dead slavesWeapons of war that have slept in their gravesNow rising up in a dread resurrection

The wind of the Spirit drives us untilWe come to the grave of what was invisibleWar stands erect, the dreadful undead

Pavel March 4, 2018

146


QUO VADIS?

In RomeA tombstoneFrom the time of Augustus

After the usualTerms of remembranceA peremptory injunction

“Do not make water here”To one two thousand years agoWho read the inscription

Who stood thereWhile on the way from RomeTaking his ease

And there he seesAnother oneOn His way to the city

It might have been readBy Peter himself:“Quo vadis?”

Pavel March 4, 2018

147


THERE IS A WORLD

In the old brownstone, at the ending of the treadsA stiff-faced man holds a lesser iconA portrait painted darkly, someone dead,A man who was a priest but now is gone

But that is Father X. deceased, I say—The messenger is silent, rigid-faced,Deadpan as a being on displayJust alive enough to show another place

A messenger who does not draw attentionTo himself but to the message that he bears,He is the courier of comprehensionBut does not signify his own affairs

There is a world not distant from our ownNor at our loneliest are we alone

Pavel March 5, 2018

148


THERE IS A CITY

Some people are deserts whose verdure is thornsWith berries of acid, their harvest is scorn,Others are oceans unbridled and deepExplored to the depth of them only in sleep,Others are gardens, warm, sunny and smallPeaceful, untroubled, enclosed by a wall,Some are a strong wind, revolving and fierceEmbodied with dust and a shriek that can pierce

And there is a city, a wound and a lesionWhose streets are not straight but run crooked to reasonWhere refuse and ordure stream slow through the centerAnd only barbarians come there to enterWhere buildings lean forward like ripening wheatFor the cut of the scythe and the crash of defeat

Pavel March 6, 2018

149


THE MIGHTY AND MAJESTIC PULSE

Brush Mountain growing crystal treesBecause there was a morning freeze,A white cloud robe was thrown aroundThe slope of it above the ground

It was too pretty, picturesque,A postcard propped on someone’s desk,But by the afternoon a thawWas left for someone else to draw

At winter’s end the bulbs have thrustTheir shoots aloft—in sun they trust—Dwarf iris, soon the crocus showsIts head above the feeble snows

The mighty and majestic pulseOf God, His law, and nothing else

Pavel March 7, 2018

150


WAITING TO BE BORN

Look carefully at that great emptinessWhich seethes with pregnant light,Existence waiting to be born,The womb of Mary and the moving Child

Stroke and feel Him stretching in the WombTurning, reaching for the light,Existence waiting to be bornTo see and cry and speak

Go out into the night and find true darknessWhere emptiness is visibleWaiting to be bornThen finally look up and see

God takes up the burden of your ignoranceAnd bears it to the Cross

Pavel March 8, 2018

151


LIKE A DART

Spear, olive-green, weightless in an amber gloomEyes great golden annulars, body slim,Jaw slung under, state of mind a timeless flame,Time itself a bodiless, impelling wind

Marvel of another kind than oursThat light should have collected in this shapeTo hang suspended in a universal forceThat forms the spotted creature and lake-scape

That watches hours for unseeing preyThen swiftly curves in S-form or a CTo seize and swallow food without delayThat both can form the substance of to be

The name of it is Pike, it is the artOf life that moves in lunges like a dart

Pavel March 9, 2018

152


I SAW THEM ALL

I saw them all give homage to the LambThe sacrifice, the heart, the great I AmHoly women, holy bishops, priestsSaints and martyrs, none were greatest, least

All together on the flowered meadowWhere death was conquered to an end of sorrowJoining round the altar, sacrificeFor every resurrection would suffice

Summon sunlight, sun forever moreNo darkness or the bitterness of war,Fear and sadness, loss of every loveAbolished by the sunlight from above

Love itself the radiance that shone,A miracle, no heart to be aloneBecause His blood poured freely in the cup—Adore forever, drink salvation up

Pavel March 10, 2018

153


AND FOR SUCH PEOPLE

Who beat, whose fists knocked out His eyesCursed and mocked One they despised,What anguish to be hated soWhat shock to suffer every blow

On brow and temple to embossA crown of blood, then load the CrossTo bear by lagging steps untilThey reached the summit of the hill

For them He gave His blood and breathHis own young life to conquer death,For those who beat him almost deadTo give for them His flesh as bread

To not condemn and curse but saveTo raise these wretches from the grave—Who but Christ would rescue suchThat only willing maggots touch?


154


TWO WORLDS

There was a dome above the worldIsaiah’s veil, Isaiah’s net,On one side was realityOn the other was not-yet

On one side death was overcomeChrist had risen from the tomb,Sunlight poured as from a cupOn the other cold and gloom

Marjorie they buried youWhere once the green of summer grew,On the hillside under snowWhite has come to cover you

The white of your baptismal gownThat covered coffin, grave and all,What will never grow was sownThe snow will melt that was snowfall

But only come and I will showWhat lies beyond this steep hillside,A step, mere step, but step and throughTo see the stars that were denied


155


DID HE KNOW?

Blue-gray clouds like sculptured smokeFolded through with snow and creamWas this the Word the Father spoke?

Bird song in a frigid springThrush returning from the southAre these the gifts the Magi bring?

At moments all becomes as OneA light, a symbol and a songA bird the Spirit, Spring the Son

If I could keep what I have seenFor more than seconds I would knowWhat all the separate moments mean

Did He know forever moreWhen Jesus went apart to prayWhat you and I and He are for?


156


THE LION WHO SAT BY THE CHAIR OF SAINT JEROME

The lion who sat by the chair of Saint JeromeShrank itself smaller and sits near me on my deskBut still a true miniature and not a burlesque

In deserts and wastelands sensory visions existThere is nothing that can be seen which is untrueEither it is in the mind or in visual view

It is the cautioning beast that growls and rumbles—It says there are spirits which wander here and thereIn the mind or in the shimmering waves of the air

The demons are gnashing deceivers who whisper this:There is no bread to eat but the bread of stonesAnd there are no living creatures but dry bones

They offer a kingdom of trash for a token worship—But the lion drives them away with his yellow eyesAnd even the greatest of them is the Lord of the Flies


157


INSIDE THE HOUSE

I would build my house besideThe sepulchers of useless prideSix feet long and three feet wide

There the world would lay to restThe worst of me and not the bestSunrise up and sunset west

There would be a bridge acrossThe roof, the walls, the wooden crossOn which the writing reads: No Loss

A curving bridge so traffic couldPass above the cross of woodIn that silent neighborhood

In that house would be a bedFor sleep as for the other deadUnless there comes what Jesus said

That we will sleep and then we riseTo be with Him to our surpriseInside the House where no one dies


158


IT IS MINE

Everything My Father gives is MineSaid Jesus, who turned water into wine,It is My kingdom, done with as I wish,My flesh that was the baked bread in the dish

Emptiness a pulse of energy,Every star an impulse come of Me,Everything I give by My own will,The cup that you have drunk from I can fill

As I was emptied also on the CrossOf life itself, a true and final lossI took again, as I can give to you,As waiter from the water vessel drew

Sunlight that the sun had turned to wine—Your life itself I give, for it is Mine


159


FIELDS OF BATTLE

When she was a child in a small mountain townAll the children she knew when they heard went downTo the slaughterhouse when the pigs came inOn a truck to be slaughtered, a few armed men

Stood on a platform and fired their gunsOver the drop gate at the condemned ones,A shot to the brain aimed over the snoutDropped them cleanly, over and out

People do that to people too,Many we’ve heard of and some we knew—They also took knives to the throats of threeVeal calves and she ran before she could see

Butchering meat and the fields of battleThe killing by people of people and cattle


160


ALMOST LIKE ME

When she was little she had a puzzleA frame with two figures cut out with a jigsaw,One was a rabbit who nibbled a carrotOne was a Scottie dog, frisky and merry

The carrot was orange and had a green topThe Scotty was black, it could wiggle and bark,Made by a craftsman, carved out and paintedThe rabbit was white and the little dog panted

The Lord God looked down and said to the girlThose were My feelings when I made the world,So happy and pleased with the realm I had madeThat exactly like you I loved as I played

I give you a little world so you can beA little creator almost like Me


161


IF WE DARE

Look up at the sky at nightSee at once: How generous,The Lamb who made this takes delightIn His prodigious universe

The Chief Designer, field and flood,Deserts, mountains, hills and trees—Did the Lamb who gave His bloodMake all of these?

First existence, then His pleasure:Giving up His life to thoseHe loves with such consuming powerFalling gently as the snows

To show that we can take our share:To die for others if we dare


162


THE MOUNTAIN

A dove sits on a power wireAnother dove is perching higher,Blizzard, snowing, second day,New dispensation Noah’s way—Noah drank his new pressed wineAnd thieves still said: What’s yours is mine

War and famine, rain and snowFear and greed the undertow -Did he think that people change?A new creation would seem strange;Snow for forty days and nights—Dove make ready for your flight

Dove fly up, you will be sentTo find the mountain Noah meant


163


DEAD MAN’S SWITCH

He’d been having pains in the lower torsoA doctor in Moscow examined himThey thought he might be having cardio-vascular pain

But the doctor, from a famous institute, found nothingLater, in a month or so, on assignment in the USAt three in the morning a massive heart attack

Did they know he was planning to defect?They’d been waking him at three a.m. with phone callsStressed and overweight—but what else?

Did they know he was planning to defect?Perhaps more active measures were not neededBut what if they knew his defection had been imminent?

A massive attack, the EMTs worked for hoursBut they were unable to save himAre there ways to induce, speed up an event?

What happens at life’s last secondWhen a life-long atheist, when a KGB generalTakes his hand off the dead man’s switch?


164


NO MORE NOR LESS THAN YOU

If a million years fall out of His pocketsHe won’t even miss themIf He dips His hand in a chest of a billionThey slip through his fingers, glittering

But these are metaphors, we areHis little treasures, shining soulsIn orbit around the tower of presenceA sort of crown or coronet

Now in the vast inestimable wasteOf time before and time beyondA stride and then another stride—He passes through

A bird that launches from a branchNo more nor less than youAnd yet He came to saveThe being that He gave


165


I REMEMBERED

I remembered the Moscow dreamMore ill-lighted late at nightThan it had been in Soviet times—A few dull yellow hanging lights

Not much more by this time caughtIn daylight memory exceptAn offer to escort me outBy one kind person—then he left

All the treasures of beforeThe great Cathedral of Spilled BloodHad been torn down before the warAnd nothing left where it had stood

The Blood itself was all sponged upBut Christ’s fresh blood is ever spilledThat pays for saints and the corruptFor all the killers and the killed

The mystery of His compassionHell denied instead of heaven


166


MEGALOS IS DEAD

Megalos is dead I once heard people saySixty only, at a class for quitting cigarettesHe died of cardiac-arrest

They did not pose or seem distraughtBut rather pleased to see him dead—A smirk, to laugh is not well-bred

We didn’t get along, and theyWho told me with a smile, the setWho worked with him, they were not desolate

Is it astonishing to knowThat Christ who suffered on the crossWould grieve his death and pay the cost

Grieve for all and should He not?Wretches, who more worthy thanThe most disliked and bitter man?

To understand you must look downFrom where the Christ was crucifiedWho for the armored unloved died

The flesh and blood so precious thatNo one can pay for it, the feeThe price, the cost Christ’s agony


167


GREAT CITIES LAY IN THAT DIRECTION The east aflame, it was not dawnThe sun had risen long agoGreat cities lay in that directionRed and yellow and a glow As if a second sun had risenJust as had the dawn at firstGreat cities lay in that directionBuildings into flame had burst I saw a figure like a manStand above the red horizonFirst he stood and then he ranGreat cities lay in that direction Everything his running touchedEverything his fingers strokedRose in flame and fire broachedThe walls, the windows bulged and broke He was like the guard of EdenWith a sword of deadly fireGreat cities lay in that directionAnd as he swung it flames rose higher Pavel March 26, 2018

168


BECAUSE

A cardinal in a maple treeThe leaves in March do not curl freeSo that the bird is like a redBright leaf in autumn, has not bred

As yet but sings alluring notesFrom its black mask and burning throatAnd claims with its arpeggioThat it is boss of all below

It perches on the top and summitSo hens can see the cock and find itBuild a fine and fertile nestWith this loud lord in scarlet dressed

The force of life delivered thusBecause it will, because it must


169


THEIR FOOTPRINTS MELT

The orange pepper has been nibbledBy the local cottontailsBut only tentatively sampled,Thaw last night erased the trail

Of hopping in the melting snow,From the hedges where they stayed,In dusk of dawn the rabbits goTo execute a timid raid

Live around us, side by sideIn the spring the trace expandsIn the garden, on the hillsideWhere the cemetery stands

Alike they find the gift, receive,Their footprints melting as they leave


170


ON EASTER DAY

You are the tomb in which they buriedWordless, breathless, lifeless Jesus

Deep within they buried HimBleeding brow and twisted limb

The tomb of Christ is cold insideWithin the stillness of your pride

While He waits to rise againBe His shelter and His friend

Truly dead but He will liveTo give you life and to forgive

Wake with Him on Easter DayHe will rise up, be on His way

Then in return you are His guestHe is the shelter of the blessed


171


THIS GARLAND

In the place where He was buriedFrom the tomb where He was carriedI met the Christ now risen

Beautiful and brightly shiningThe sun above His head was risingAnd in His hand He held a crown

It was a crown of stabbing thornsWhich on the woeful cross He’d wornAnd He held it out to me

Here, He said, I do not need itTake it now from Me and wear itThere is a price to be set free

To be set free from death then wearThe crown of agony to shareThe piercing crown of human woe

The crown of joining and compassionWear it, be My true companionThen My glory you shall know

Share this garland, you shall earnAnother crown that does not burnThe rising sun of love


172


THE FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR WATCH

She decided to treat herself to a watchIn Switzerland, on holiday,Don’t mind if I do myself, he saidHow much do you think we ought to pay? Splurge, said his wife, we’re old and richFifty thousand each, I’d say,How often does anyone buy a watchSo what do we care how much we pay? This is a special one, said the jeweler,When the day of reckoning strikes the hourAnd the dial has touched the twelve at the topThe day of reckoning strikes with power From here in Geneva around the worldThe sky will become a vault of flameAnd the dust of the cities will rise to the zenith,The reckoning day will be its name And the watch itself will flash with fireAnd ring with a note both loud and clearAnd you will glance at your wrists and say:What a pleasure it’s been to know you, dear Fifty thousand, said the jewelerA hundred thousand for the twoAnd what will you do with the money afterward?The husband replied: And what will you? Pavel March 31, 2018

173


ANOTHER ROSE

When Christ walked in the gardenWith Mary MagdalenThe flower that He choseTo give her was a rose

Where He and Mary walked,A thorn grew from the stalkShe saw the blood run downFrom finger-tip to ground

Keep this blood-red flowerMy rising to rememberThe wound the barb has bledShows I am not dead

Another rose I’ll giveWhen all the dead shall live

Pavel April 1, 2018

174


THE MIRACLE OF CANA

As Christ changed water into wineSo common words are changed to verseIs it not a holy sign?

Water, wine and clay becomeSpeaking parables of graceVisuals of what was dumb

So that by which the world seemed strangeA power known to be unknownWine and word were changed

Except the waiters and those twoThe mother and the SonImagine then that no one knew

The Cana wedding came and wentThe world re-shaped was never bent Pavel April 2, 2018

175


POINT OF VIEW

The Praying Mantis in its caseOf congealed spittle hides its face,A hanging leaf of pussy willowExploited by it for a pillow

When the sun has reached a strengthThe mantis stretches to full length,Through a seam it squeezes, formsAn adulthood as April warms

Face triangular and greenSees its prey but is not seen,Claws that clasp and arms like wiresTrigger, spring, the prey expires

Are they monsters on six legsOr hatching, hunting, monstrous eggs?

Pavel April 3, 2018

176


RODNEY

The clay-baked frog who ruled the lawnAnd lived through many frosts is goneAs blind as bats because his eyesDropped out and broke to our surprise—A shame, she said, he did not thrive—But Rod, I said, was not alive

The frog was Rodney, sleek and jadeAs big and fat as he was madeBut never caught a fly becauseHe had no tongue between his jaws,He also had no stomach orA need for flies to hunger for

As Rodney was to us are weTo God inert as pottery?When He made a man of clayWas it meant to stay that way?When He made a woman tooWas she designed forever new?

We are to change and then grow old,For each of us He broke the mold Pavel April 4, 2018

RodneyPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

177


SILVER

When Judas left the others stayedSteadfast although he was paidTo see the time when Christ was triedConvicted, sentenced, crucified

Who will have the courage ofSelf-giving-to-destruction love?Tell how many will denyThe loving Christ until they die

Remember Peter, panic strickenChrist denied—he was forgiven—Death a barrier too highTo see beyond, though all must die

Jesus died and then returnedWith more than Judas ever earned

Pavel April 7, 2018

178


THE END OF AUGUST

Dream-vision noted long agoA sort of anti-AngelusA visitation perilous

A city ruined turned to rubbleStreets submerged in high debrisAn anti-Savior parody

As though the demons had declaredUtter downfall and damnationInstead of Christ and our salvation

Identify these aliensWho come from some place other-whereAgainst whom nothing can prepare

All who were survivors stoodIn ragged lines and crowds to waitFor round-up and uncertain fate

That this conquest may not bePray in every church and chapelNone escaped and all were fearful

It is the end of August whenThe harvest crops are gathered inThat this invasion may begin

Pavel April 8, 2018

179


THEIR GOLDEN POVERTY

Jesus scanned the golden wallsThe Temple shining, yellow stone—Rubble when the city fallsWho sees it? I, the Lord, alone

They said to Christ: The city lives,Bread is kneaded, baked and sold,All corruptions God forgives,The holy Temple was foretold

Although a wind may pass aboveThe narrow streets, the houses standAs evidences of the loveOf God, though He may reprimand

Christ stood on GethsemaneThen He wept to see the crowd—Beheld their golden poverty,The poor, the unexpecting proud

Pavel April 9, 2018

180


SOME ARE LOOKING AWAY

Lamb on the altar, from His breastThe blood that sanctifies the blessedFills the chalice to brim,Eternity that bleeds from Him

Those who watch from every sideHoly ones from death revived,Saints and martyrs, priests and lay,Men and women, stand away

Holy women, holy menScholars, simpletons, His friends,But see that some look at the Lamb,Directly at the great I Am

While others turn away and glanceNot fully at Him but askance,Avoid a look direct and fullAt Glory bright, unbearable

Some can look, the simpletonsWho gaze directly at the sunBut are not blinded nor amazed,Who drawn within return His gaze

Pavel April 10, 2018

181


PLEASURE THAT IS SO IMMENSEA woman in a coffee shopLingers over soda pop,Although her age is fifty-twoShe colors sketches someone drew

Her mental age is eight or nineShe crayons in between the lines,A box of colors by her side,Children’s pleasure, not much pride

Still too young for self-esteemA flower-garden is her theme,Roses red and violets,Crocuses do pirouettes

Long ago I lost her senseOf pleasure that is so immense


182


GREAT BIG HAIRY SPIDER

Great big hairy spider, eightLong nimble legs to hunt and mate,Scuttle up and down the wallJump and scare, appear, appall

But I who guard this house awoke,Every breakable I brokeSmashed and shattered in pursuitOf that big horrible hirsute

I am protector of this houseAgainst a mammoth or a mouse—Praise and stroke my hairy headThe spider that I killed is dead

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/22/91/56/229156f8a39d7493a0623863abd4da85--so-funny-funny-stuff.jpg


183


STARLIGHT

Saint Agnes’ Lamb lies in her apronThe Lamb of God is her protection

It is the Lamb of sacrificeNot once but twice, and more than twice

Saint Agnes pure and virgin, chaste,Nor can her image be defaced

I saw her in a flock of womenCome to laud the Lamb of heaven

There I saw her come to praiseThe Lamb that in her apron stays

From the Lamb there came a beamGentler than the sun’s dawn stream

It lights but does not cast a shadowStarlight over heaven’s meadow

It is a saint’s illumination,It does not burn—it is compassion


184


EVERY HOPE

Spring Beauty is a pinkish flowerUnnoticed sign that spring has comeOf every hope it is the sum

So small the little petals hideUnseen until beneath an oakSurprising as a lightning stroke

What has sprung beneath the treeOf power no one can foreseeThat must be studied on your knees?


185


THE CHILD IS MUTE

A five-year-old autistic childShe only says one word: “good-bye”—In one sense she is not defiledBecause she will not ever lie

Bear the stain of those who speak,Who bully, slander, mock and curse,Oppress with words the small and weak,Change with age to even worse

A blessing and a curse receivedThis abstract gift of human speech—A good and evil many-leavedTree whose fruit was out of reach

Until a serpent plucked and gaveThe fruit whose taste unlocked our tongue,The muteness of the girl may saveHer from despair—but she is young


186


HOW STRANGE

How strange that on the moving trainThe conductor and the engineerHaul the crippled man between themHeave and throw him from a window

While we the passengers unmovingMake our conversation, jawThough the engineer defies usDares us to object

Who are we? Where are we going?Toward the outskirts, toward the center?No one seems to care or leaveThe train at any stop or station

Are we safe—dare we speak?Are we the peaceful and the meek?


187


BUT ANGELS FED

Time the desert black and bleakThe demon’s track, the vulture’s beak—But sometimes blooming toughened vinesOf underwater springs the signs

This is where the Christ beganTo live in full the fate of man,The endless trekking of the deadWho live on stone but have no bread

But when He had been tempted wellBy power, wealth, the bribes of HellAnd when He had rejected themAs wraiths of wrath and phantasms

The Devil left Him to returnTo where tormented spirits burnIn wilderness that never endsWhere grief and anger never mend

But angels fed the Christ our LordWho conquered death without a sword


188


WHICH IS YOURS?

As with the raising of the deadThe demon-driving and revivingMultiplying of the bread

The Crucifixion is a signThat we must follow, one and all,Our lives are forfeit, yours and mine

As we have lived and died beforeBut in a while not one by oneBut in a universal war

Unless we learn to live in peaceThe tension between life and deathInside the soul will be released

On this high hill, the planet Earth,The human race will mount a crossThat from the clay has given birth

To crucify itself unlessIt kneels to touch the Father’s feetTo beg He will forgive and bless

Forgive and bless and give to usA sign of new absolving loveOr else return us to the dust

Which is yours? the Lord will say,Thy will be done, now speak and choose—Life for life you must repay


189


I WAS SO PLEASED(Inspired in part by a concept in N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God)

I was so pleased when she prepared baked fishWe had on Sunday heard that Christ requestedFish to eat to show He was true flesh

Had she remembered then that morning’s textOr is it true that life is not a randomnessBut that two universes intersect?

Intersect and interlockThat in some worlds there are true wildernessesWhere if He wished God might make bread from rocks?

Alongside ours is there another placeWith echoes of our voices and our shapesThat move beside our own, that interlace?

So that for supper she prepared our mealBaked fish the main course and the solid signThat showed the Christ was not a ghost but real?

Christ who leaves real footsteps in the dewThat falls upon Gethsemane at dawnWhen Christ has risen and the worlds are two


190


WILL IT BE A CRIME?

So fresh and happy at their First CommunionTheir photos printed on a bannerThat hangs beside the sanctuary Old this spring enough to eatThe Precious Body. drink His gift of BloodNot food for infants

Foresee their features sixty years from nowAfter war perhaps and desolationHave contended with temptation

What banner then will show their faces?Who will they be and in what places?How many altars will remain?

Will there be faith beyond themselvesAnd will their children have been taughtTo give—or to be bought?

Will people then be fully human?Will they pray themselves to sleepAnd will it be a crime to weep?


191


LITTLE BLUE HERON

Taken by a freak spring stormIt landed in a vernal pondWhere nothing it could eat would swim

A little heron blown off courseBy weather of colossal power—How could the creature know the source?

Just so Rabbi NicodemusTaught by Jesus secretlyAs he listened fathomed less

Listen, look and learn from allYou see around you in the worldIt is a lesson to the small

The world’s creation is His templeWhere He dwells to manifestBoundless secrets to the simple


192


ALL THE WIZARDS

The birdbath has iced on the twentieth, April,A smooth sullen dove has perched on the rim,What news can the spirit of prophecy tell?The songbirds of April are silent and numb

Earth will be frozen in June and JulyIn August a blizzard of smothering snow,Although all the wizards of science may lieThe beasts who don’t understand them will know

Harvests will fail and the sun will withdrawTo a distance behind a great overhead veil,That which has never grown well will be straw,The gardens of fertilized Edens will fail

The sword of expulsion will turn into iceThe exile of Eden will come to us twice


193


FOOLISH GIANT

Foolish giant, mammoth sizePurposely plucked out his eyes:“What I saw unsettled meWithout my eyes I could not see

“Then untroubled by the wrongI felt my way and went alongNot without a random curse,But seeing truth was much the worse”

The world is only so much wideAnd with the same he might collide—Giants blind and temperamentalAre not known for being gentle

Stay away they cannot see,Giants trample you and me


194


THE NEW RELIGION

I saw the new religion spreadThe church of Anguish, bishop-ledBy demons preaching made to measureSelfish sexual displeasure

Faith in lack of faith exceptIn vaults where knives of gold are kept,The non-existence of the soul,Control but never self-control

In each cathedral just one seat,Futility and hope’s defeatWhere love is never psalmed or choiredAnd gift of self is not desired

No bells, a tyrant’s blaring voice:Abandon hope—you have no choice


195


THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA

The beasts have said to humans: We have no inner senseBut you two-legged ones you keep us creatures in suspense,Which is the self, true self of you, that shadows bear inside,That by your outer semblances and false appearance hide?

Ask the buzzing blackbird in the branches of a tree,Lord of all the little birds by no hypocrisy—It is his royal dominion to breed and nest aboveThe lesser worlds of finches without professing love

Look inside your neighbor, your lover or your friend,Depth within another depth and stages without end,Each one is a universe, compassion and a devil,One that interpenetrates them all, the others on each level

Each a mini-universe, no other beast can tellWhat the woman of Samaria may draw up from that well


196


THE QUARREL BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

I saw the pale one standing at the gate,I will come in, he said, I do not wait,I freely come and go, it is my office,To meet and conquer life my pride and service

Noiseless on its hollowness it came—I am the strong, Death-dealing is my name,I am at highest noon the deepest night—Great beside that spirit stood a light

Death held up a songbird in his grip,Squeezed until it died and let it slip,Watched the color fading from each feather—Now, he said, it will not sing forever

That is what I do to each and allLiving things, the massive and the small,Take the life, the energy, the breathI am the uncontainable called Death

There came a light around, beneath, above—I am the poem of eternal loveI am the tune, the rhythm and the songI am the breaking off that makes you strong

I am the everything, the only OneThe ceaseless, deathless everlasting sun,Eternal life, for nothing else can be—And here is song, the songbird on the tree


197


THE DEALER’S HOUSE

Robbie’s five years old, he’s one of eight,His mother is an addict, father deals—He says: My mommy has bad problems, waitsTo see if she is sober, how she feels

When he has to pee he goes outside,The bathroom hasn’t seen a mop in seasons—Being five he doesn’t try to hideAnd doesn’t know enough to give the reason

Those forgetting God construct these trapsOf undesigned and uncontrolled disorder,Drugs fill in the spaces and the gapsReoccupied by emptiness and terror

The dealer’s house is trashed and uncared forFrom hollowness to heart, from door to door


198


HIS BLESSING

Religion holding us togetherSpirit joins the Son and FatherBut hear the steps of war come closer

Step by step on every streetArmies marching toward defeatThe flesh of Christ goes back to wheat

Fertility and grace are endedAborted He who had descendedBecause His blessing is offended

Now among anointed onesMothers mourning for their sonsTheir generations are undone

What human power can preventThe helplessness of governmentSanity’s impoverishment

Come together all to prayWe may avert tomorrow’s dayAt least by blessing it delay


199


THERE IS ONE MORE

A flame to a flameWhy should they quarrelTheir color the same?

A flowering treeA falling sunThen a foraging bee

Both of the kingdomThe April sunsetThe blossoming plum

And of the thirdThere is one moreThe song of a bird


200


LOVED AS MUCH AS ANY

She sits in the last of the wooden pewsFifty years old with a low IQ,Sister beside her to take careThat of where she is she is aware

When she’s restless keep her hushedBe sure she doesn’t stir too much,And when the homily is spokenIf she is drowsy nudged and woken

And when the people rise to takeDivine Communion she’s awakeTo the somberness of the sacrament -This physically grown-up innocent

For she is loved as much as anyAs Christ the Child was loved by Mary


201


A TROLL

Most monsters do not monstrous seemBut I saw this one in a dream—Rubbed and old although still hale,Bristles, bald, all-over pale

A smirk across its bullet headNot all alive and yet not dead,Body burly yet unwellA troll perhaps on leave from Hell

I felt the hair rise on my head,Would not flee but looked instead—I think it was the essence ofA soul that never was in love

But strong enough and insolentAnd I alone know what was meant—Christ be with us, You can saveUs from un-risings of the grave


202


SHE HAD A BABY

She had a baby by a Black man,Bob, her husband, stamped and cursed:“Either it goes or else I go”Trouble like this not the first

Both are addicts, both with records,Seven other kids are theirs,He works sometimes then gets fired,She engages in affairs

How many of the other sevenHave another for a father?She’s has left him and come back—Has he ever thought of murder?

Yet she is dependent on himSuffers breakdowns if he swearsTo leave her, begs him, he relentsUntil she has a new affair

She gives the latest baby toAnother woman, starting new,And will again, she can no moreDecide what she is pregnant for


203


NEEDLE MARKS

What one side knows, so does the other sideSaid one who self-betrayed—If looking for himself can someone hide?

How pathetic then to see two addictsShow their punctured inner armsTo a policeman looking for two suspects

Healed injections of two years ago—See, they tell him, healed and we are cleanSo what may go on elsewhere we don’t know

Policemen come because they fight and drinkUse the public’s money for their beerTheir seven kids are seldom bathed and stink

There is in some such hopeless self-disgustScars of deprivation in their soulsThat never heal but grow another crust

When Christ hung on the cross the wounds He boreWere their self-crucifixionsAnd who but He would understand what for?


204


LOVE IMMUTABLE

They come each day for coffee, half-past three—From wheelchair to a chair in her ordealShe moves and turns not short of agony—Love can inward suffer what she feels

When they married did he bargain forHer half-paralysis below the waistThe wheelchair guided though half-opened doors?Love within by service can be traced

It has no different goodness than beforeNor is it passion that has been misplaced—It is the same clean figure at the coreWhich cannot by her illness be defaced

Love immutable, the pure pristineUnpolluted even when unseen

Pavel May 1, 2018

205


THE POWER

Where is the Temple of the Lord, where is it now?It is in you if Christ has taken up His holy placeBetween the cherubim who praise Him to His faceHoly art Thou, holy art Thou, holy blessed Thou

Three separate times they praise Him for His holinessThree times because the Trinity is all in allBefore which every power in the world must fallHis governance of each dominion souls confess

This temple is within us all, within your spiritTo which you bring the sacrifice of daily prayerConfessing as the spirits of the blessed declareWe go up to the holy mountain and the summit

Who is let within the temple, what Person do they seek?He is the Lord of all the world, the universe, and He is meek

Pavel May 2, 2018

206


THE COVE Long high cliffs close in a valleySheds for livestock, mostly dairy,Cultivated to the wallsCows producing in their stalls,

Yellow fields of feeder cornSheds for where the calves are bornGrowing, sunning in the fieldsExperimental soybean yields

Amish, Mennonite and BrethrenKeeping faith in God in common,They too cultivate a crop:Their generations do not stop

Within the walls a tranquil child—Outside chaos growing wild

Pavel May 3, 2018

BEHIND THEIR BACKS

Why are those ragged idlers on the terraceWhile Mary and the Child within the palaceManifest to prayers of love and trust,Eternity divergent from the dust?

With dumpy figures in their rumpled clothesThey ogle at the sunlight, yellow rose,Mary lovely by an angel crownedWhile ragged loafers slouch above the town

Beyond, beneath, creation’s majestyA river runs through one divided city,Cathedral on the right and in the otherCoinage and the craft that come together

But in the room unseen behind their backsThe loving sacrifice the city lacks

Pavel May 3, 2018

207


Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441), “Virgin with Chancellor Rolin Luber”Musée du LouvreCourtesy Wikimedia Commons

208


THERE IS A GOLDEN SPHERE

There is a golden sphereThat spins inside the soulThe surface of it clearDiameter and pole

If it remained undamagedClarity unalteredBy nothing evil savagedRotation never faulted

It might forever spinThe tiny ball of goldUnaltered from withinSo heavy and so old

Sometimes the uncannyHums within the centerAnd then we feel a changeWhen something tries to enter

The spinning mass is greatAnd so is the momentumBut yet so delicateMysterium tremendum

Pavel May 4, 2018

209


SERVE THE TRUTH

Turn off the sunBy shutting eyesChange pear blossomsInto snowSay the truthBy telling lies

And yet the ChristDisciples saidRose aliveWhen He was deadAte and gave themFish and bread

He broiled these on a charcoal fireAnd one who serves the truth is not a liar

Pavel May 5, 2018

210


I AM TRUE

I am true, a man, a crossFlesh and blood, the wood behindWhen you pray you speak to MeNot an idea in your mind

I am the speaker and the spokenOn the Cross My life was broken

I am a Person, blood and beingThe born, the living and WordWhen you pray you pray to MeThose who look and find have heard

I am the worship and the prayerCome beside Me, I am there

I am true and not a systemI am the certain and a factWhen they whipped me at the stakeThe soldiers nearly broke My back

I am the Risen from the deadAlive as you, the wine and bread

Pavel May 7, 2018

211


DEATH, THE KNIGHT, THE DEVIL

Death, the knight, the DevilDurer knew them wellDeath to ration evilAnd the Devil rules in Hell

The knight’s brave running houndCrouches at his sideWhere battle wounds are foundFrom which he does not hide

The Devil pulls him backwardToward pillaging and murderDeath compels him onwardTowards weakness and disorder

Faith the lance and armorOf the death-defeating soldier

Pavel May 8, 2018

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), “Knight, Death, and the Devil”Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York CityCourtesy Wikimedia Commons

212


LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH

Mary coming through the gateA garden like GethsemaneWhat is that you carry?

A jar of ointment in your handFor One the shadows thought they keptDeath defeated at each step

Who is walking by His side ?Ruin clutching at His sleeveCommanding Jesus: Do not leave

But Love is full and death is hollowDeath is nothing, emptinessMere projection, meaningless

But Love is God and all CreationOnce in being never diesDo not clutch Me, I must rise

Pavel May 9, 2018

213


THREE PRIVATE VISITS

At morning Mass as lightning flashedA black storm came and thunder brayed,The priest described three private visitsTo the dying in the past three days

Weeping, parting and embracing,Words unspoken, understood—He gave some comfort as he listened,The sacrament of flesh and blood

When he spoke sharp lightning flashedAs if the lifetimes of us all,Then the front passed through the windowsA heavy, thickened, blue-black wall

Passing through becoming rainBehind the sun came out again

Pavel May 10, 2018

214


THE RISEN THIEF

A man comes knocking at my door,What reason does he come here for?Seems ashamed, starvation lean,What does this visitation mean?

Like alcoholics red and rawHis skin—in trouble with the law?Says he suffers from a grief,Can he be the risen thief?

I offer money which he takes,From me to him for both our sakes,Needs it for some urgent travel,Can he be the risen rebel?

Poorly fed and poorly dressed,He is the unexpected guest,Is he one who also died,Thief or rebel crucified?

Pavel May 11, 2018

215


THE DOG AND THE SQUIRREL

She knows there’s quarry on the porchA scent of skin, a scent of breathAs it foretells her bite of death

The squirrel’s eye is bright and stillOne paw braced against a pillarMotionless except a quiver

The terrier slides here and thereBut if there is no motion failsTo see a thing from head to tail

Concentrates, but cannot findThe motionless invisibleAs long as it stays wholly still

God might stand beside me nowBut though He did I would not seeBut sense His presence near to me

Pavel May 12, 2018

216


EVIL WAKES TO EVIL

I hear deep thunder rollAcross the northern sky,A demon comes awakeAnd mutters: “Who am I?”

Rotated by the windIf forms a hand and face,A right hand or a leftEach one is wind-erased

A mouth, a nose, an eyelidA curling, sneering lip,Rain runs to the bulging chinDrip by drip by drip

Evil wakes to evilAnd tries to hold the sky—A blundering big devilThat mutters: “Who am I?”

Pavel May 12, 2018

217


GOD DRESS YOU

It’s her ninety-first birthdayWe brought her spring flowers,The rain beat down hour by hour—She belongs to the Legion of Mary

You can see the grass heightenThe black sky has beckoned,Clothed in the cloudsAs the Lord Jesus summons

It’s an Earth suit she wears—As the long seams tightenThe needlework tearsAnd the sinews stiffen

Born in the flesh and whenBy death disrobed, God dress you again

Pavel May 14, 2018

218


THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON

From the far side of the moonThere is no EarthOnly a great emptiness

Look from the unfilled hemisphereOf the darkened mindThere is no God to see

Only a few steps forward then, aboveA shining crescent liftingBlue and white

A glow appears above the wildernessCome forwardSee the sphere of Jesus rising

How surprising it was never knownUntil the journey had begunTo reach the black horizon

Pavel May 15, 2018

219


THERE IS A WORD

When someone dies what can it mean?When one life ends, another starts,Do universes die between?

Or like a squall between two skiesEach blue and filled with golden lightIs it dark when someone dies?

Or tides advancing to retreatAre we all one life at once,Wave to wave do all waves meet?

I have seen it with my sonWho died before this present day,Has his new existence just begun?

I may not answer this, forbiddenTo know what lies across the hillsOf death, what lives beyond is hidden

There is a word that love has said,Most powerfully a word of loveWhich is not uttered by the dead

It is a secret I will keep,You must hear it for yourselfAnd those who hear it wake from sleep

Pavel May 15, 2018

220


OUTLAWS

Some day there really will be voices in your headSpeaking messages and favored slogansSchizophrenics will be outlawsWith a highly schematic sense of reality

In the last few dead spots will there be peaceRemote reserves, the Mariner Canyon of MarsThe bottom of the Marianas TrenchOtherwise, expect the worst

Hip hop, non-stop, you won’t be let aloneTo be turned off will be a felonyOnly the elite will be allowed to thinkNo one at all will find serenity

Stillness will be illegalAnd you will miss those voices when you die—Only one who approaches the secret altar of GodWill find a sanctuary

Pavel May 16, 2018

221


FORGIVEN

Does the anti-Christ have an anti-Judas?A rebel who lives in hell?Call it Earth and see

Silver does not buy himHe gives his life for othersLeads them through the fire

If hell is other peopleThen hell is a long gray roomWith no doors and no windows

The guests protest foreverAbout their own complaintsBut no one listens

Like a noise that never endsThe buzzing of resentmentsHatreds never answered

Anti-Judas finds someGuides them through the fireThat burns around the room

They do not sign they know himDo not say a wordBut they find an open door

Forgiven pass the fireChrist is waiting thereTrue flesh, true blood

Pavel May 17, 2018

222


SHE GAVE BIRTH

A boat on a riverA warm May morningGloried by songbirdsWho call from the mastsDrifts on the currentThat does not ravelAt most a reflectionIn a waveless streamHe is not actionGod is the stillness

Where had she gone?We heard of her illnessMysterious sicknessBut then we were toldShe had given birth toThe smallest of infantsDelivered aliveTo a warm May morningBut who is the father?The one the most silent

Pavel May 18, 2018

223


IF I AM LOST

One lone goose, small head stretched outPlaintive single honk of doubt,Where’s the flock and where’s the pond—Over the new leaved trees, beyond?

Can feral souls be alien?Do they wander off and thenTaste of terror yet unknown?—Why should a wild goose be alone?

The sky is deep and long and wideA desert where a flock could hide,But there is also meadow grassFor geese to graze, for night to pass

Alone within the wild white sky,If I am lost then what am I?

Pavel May 19, 2018

224


A PERSON PLANTED

It weighs three quarters of a poundA sightless kitten or a puppy,She had herself inseminatedThe father might be one of many

A mother old at forty-fourOlder than she ought to be,Survival isn’t guaranteed,Gender chosen to be she

If never born we never dieBut now it is submitted toA light beyond imagining—Blind puppy sleeping, who are you?

Not a creature or a breedA person planted from a seed

Pavel May 20, 2018

225


WITHIN THAT SPHERE

I saw God stand in the gardenThe One who dwells untouched in lightTimeless as is timeless heaven

Around Him was a golden sphereThe width of which was all of timeWithin no grief or shame or fear

Only oneness and completionWhile round the central light there spunA dance of souls in adoration

Those who stood outside saw hoursCircling round a glowing lightAround the light not souls but flowers

Within that sphere was libertyWithout all measure, time or seasonIn that gold garden of eternity

Pavel May 21, 2018

226


FALLING IN LOVE

The spring rain speaks to meLong words and short, long sentencesWe have fallen, say the drops

One drenched starling on a power lineJumps and flies awayDrops falling from its wings

And the sky is falling tooGently from the troposphereSettling softly overhead

How peaceful and receptive is the groundFertile and feminineBeneath the falling rain

One might almost sayThe earth and the skyAre falling in love

Pavel May 22, 2018

227


GOD HID HIS FACE

Cain said: God conceals His faceAs punishment for my disgraceFor murdering my only brotherTruly loved of father, mother

Who should have been beloved by meI killed him out of jealousyRivalry and bitternessTo wander in the wilderness

Without God’s face I lose my sightOf light and love, of peace and rightA barrier inside the mindWithout transcendence Cain is blind

But He will sign me with His markThough I must wander in the dark

Pavel May 23, 2018

228


PHOTOGRAPHED IN PURPLE

His wife stood outside, held a photo -My husband is with you in there—I’m his wife and you are not,A pair is two and we’re the pair

The photograph showed her in purpleJust the same as she was then,No use for them to falsify—The rival is her man’s girlfriend

She would not touch a biting dog,Oh no not that one, never trustThe dog that shows a purple tongue,Salivates with purple lust

What would the solution be?If he’s the dog then what is she?

Pavel May 25, 2018

229


BEHIND THE DOOR

My sight is sharp and I can seeTo either side peripherallyDetect a movement left and rightBy daylight or in dead of night

Those who stay their pace remainReflections in a window paneOr footsteps on a busy streetThe rebounds of their firm-shod feet

One can even smell the scentOf bearing that is not well meant–Most menacing there comes a silenceJust before commencing violence

A figure stops behind a doorPatient as a predatorDecades even centuriesMotionless and cold can freeze

Pavel May 25, 2018

230


MEMORIAL DAY(revised; original dated May 22, 2015)

The hillside filled with flags that wave like grassGravesides swept and garnished with remembrance,Monday is the day of reminiscence,Wind has clasped the graves in its embrace

Who preserves the resonances, keepsPrecisely in their minds the wars that fade?When they lived the flags above the streetsQuickened with their colors their parades

Visitors bring symbols to this hill -The graves of those so lovingly they tendWith flags are void, no spirit may be killed,The wars are buried here and not the men

231


THERE’S NOTHING HERE THAT’S WORTH YOUR LIFE

There is a farmhouse that we knowA sign above, a gate below,A pointed gun, a sharpened knife:“There’s nothing here that’s worth your life”

While in the place reserved and holyWhere sanctified by One for manyWait the flesh and blood of Christ—For His pathetic rags they diced

Precious Love who is our LordBy senseless power was ignored,No one understood His worth:Three kings and shepherds at His birth

And those were few, the Magi fledThe jealousy of those soon dead

Pavel May 26, 2018

232


THE CONSERVATION OF IDENTITY

I remembered all at onceChildhood to the present tenseEven wordless feelings’ sense

All things present as they wereIn every true parameterEach distinct and not a blur

Sight and sound and feel of skinAll as perfect specimenTaken in as feeling then

Would it vanish, all completeWhere life and end of living meet,Attainment as its own defeat?

I met an old man, I was three,Who held a pipe and stared at meOlder than a man could be

His eyes a glassy blue and coldWhen I saw him I was toldThat year he was a century old

A man born in the eighteen fortiesI see him not in memoriesBut as a child of that age sees

I feel the summer day as heatA doubtful silence as we meetThe meerschaum pipe, his wicker seat

As if I were not here but thereAnd he with his withdrawing stareOf one astonished yet aware

Pavel May 27, 2018

233


KEEPING WIDE

Memorial when we recallThose who never aged at all,The marches that they played before,The men the spectral guard of war

Men in wheelchairs watching nowStand on swollen feet somehow—Snare drum, piccolo and flute,A passing flag and they salute

Brass and drum, another bandMarching in another land,Tuba, trumpet, rattled stickCorpses at the double quick

Those already dead are bracedThe features of their heads erasedOnly figures alongside—The living, marching, keeping wide

Pavel May 28, 2018

234


TODAY IS HER BIRTHDAYFor Nancy

Ascending the staircaseShe looks down to seeA small semicircleA chip of debrisThat she tries to pick upA fragment of sunlightToday is her birthday

Though lighter than atomsShe can’t lift it upNor will it be hurriedWho intercepts?So easily slidesOver the lipOf the tread of the step

A fragment of starSo near and so far

Pavel May 29, 2018

235


AND THERE…

The baby diedIt weighed three-quarters of a poundIts life-span was three weeks

It was conceivedBy artificial inseminationBorn too soon

A child, a living thingIt had a human soulNo more nor less than ours

The lungs were undevelopedIt could not breathe unaidedAnd it lost its life

If we are only fleshThe child is snuffedA darkness endless, quenched

If we are a soulWhich rides the fleshThe infant spirit goes

And there it wandersTill it finds a worldA meadow sweet, a lamb

And there, it swings its armsAround the woolly neckAnd sings

Pavel May 30, 2018

236


WE WERE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER

I remember when we metVolunteers at a walk-in clinicWe practiced taking blood pressure

We did not know each otherBut did, perhaps, before we ever met—God gives foreknowledge

I knew then we would marryBecause we were meant for each otherMost intimate in every way

We know the other’s thoughtsBefore we manifest themIn unrequired words

Where did we meet before?We met where all has gatheredAnd never will be parted

Pavel May 31, 2018

237


TIME TRAVELER

I met Julius Caesar, how?It is a secret of the tradeBut entropy is then and now—Ride the waves before they fade

He was surprised to see me thereAs some gray shadow to appear—Loudly as a ghost may dareI whispered secrets in his ear

I am a visitor of dustA future far and indistinct—Not the least incredulousHe merely gazed at me and winked

Show me proof of what you saySome artifact that you can show,Invention with which I can playOf which no present people know

The future masked by many sunsWould hardly mount the wave of timeSo powerfully steep it runs—The lightly burdened barely climb

But I described a mobile phoneAnd when I told what it could doHe said: Make me another oneAnd what you tell me might be true

I’ll find some metal, ink and glassAnd you can make this mobile thing,Then we will see how time has passed—Until we hear the gadget ring

Pavel June 1, 2018

238


ARCHANGEL

Take the train from Moscow northThrough subboreal scrubland pastThe rocket-firing base PlesetskReach a northern city last

It’s Friday night and everyoneIs falling drunk, and some collideWith walls and others drop and crawlOn sidewalks and the riverside

Which has a fence on either bankBecause polluted is the flowA viral and microbial soupPublic health physicians know

Infants born with skin and gutDiseases and the junkie mothersSodden with the drugs they tookHopeless cases sick together

This is how a country fallsAnd how it was when I was thereA quarter century ago—How it may be us—prepare

Pavel June 2, 2018

239


ARCHANGELII

The block of flats in Arkhangelsk—Polyakov said bitterlyThey live there—the KGB

They live much better than we doBut we will find a way aroundTheir privilege and throw them down

But is it always this way, thusThat someone rises to the topBe it opportunist, cop?

That some will sort themselves apartWith privilege and luxuryWith undeserved amenity?

Where I had come from commonplaceReally, they were middle classBoxes built of steel and glass

It is the emptiness that chafesThe sense that something has gone bentSomething else that we resent

A demon with a flaming swordDefends a barrier of iceInside there is no Paradise

Pavel June 3, 2018

240


THE GARDENER

They were climbing the roots of the ancient treeAt an ancient university,Not effortless, it was arduousTo climb the prehistoric tree

A hard ascent to the top, what then?As they groped for the roots you could hear them groan,Others were helping, hand in hand,Others looked down and climbed alone

In the halls a note from the chancellorWhose name was Mister Gardener,Although it did not say what forWhen Gardener sends you must defer

But when I found the desk outsideHis office and his functionaryShe said that the meeting was delayed—His book is filled said the secretary

She showed me the calendar, my nameScrawled in ink but then removedObliterated and deletedRubbed away, but not reproved

I would still see the gardenerAt the proper time, in the proper placeIn the gardener’s busy schedule—To learn my mission face to face

Pavel June 5, 2018

241


THEIR QUESTIONS

Doves on the wirePluck at their feathersRain from the gloomHolds back as they groom

Now there is thunderCan little doves wonderWhere is the sun?Are we all one?

Are we part of a flockOur lives interlocked?Those who would knowWere gone long ago

They questioned the beastsTheir questions have ceased

Pavel June 5, 2018

242


THE ADORATION OF THE MYSTIC LAMB

I knew from their postureThat they were in ParadiseHow they knelt for the LambIn love with His sacrifice

On the meadow where metHoly women and menThe priests and the monksTheir pride was forgotten

As light is to goldSo their love of the LordI thought was so pureIt turned outward not inward

Beyond them there roseThe temples and towersOf holy JerusalemDwelt in forever

It was how they worshippedTheir bearing and peaceThe scarlet of loveFlowing out from the fleece

Pavel June 6, 2018

243


THE BLIND CHILD

Three quarters of a pound in weightShe did not flourish in that state,Sensed and clenched her mother’s thumbBut soon she died, that tiny one

We live blind, are barely madeBefore we go as we are weighed,Blindly sense but cannot seeThe light of God’s reality

Too premature in soul to liveIn light, from light are fugitive—But she will reach and grasp His thumbAs He did once, that tiny One

He was an infant held and touchedA baby kissed and fondled much

Pavel June 7, 2018

244


THE KEYS

Standing at the bus stopI found I had no keysThey were in my jacket pocketIn the closet

I climbed a grassy hillAs people tumbled downHow unlock the doorTo reach into the closet?

The spirit of my sonSaid: They’re in your pocketSpeaking drylyAnd I reached down there to find them

I held them in my palmAll the keys were thereTo open up the doorAnd find them

But then, inside the jacketI felt but could not findThe keys I thought were thereIn my jacket pocket

Of course they weren’t thereI had them in my handIt is the dead who knowWho understand

Pavel June 8, 2018

245


THE ZENIT ROOM

The carpets are autumn colored, noiselessUp to the third floor, no one is watchingThere is the house man who fixes thingsIn front of the panel of a strange machine

His back is turned as he concentratesHe can’t see what you are looking atIt is the machine that they call the ZenitWith which he can listen and record

The communications of the opponentAs they themselves observe this buildingThis is a diplomatic spaceNo one is here from the other side

So that when agents are sent to their workThey can try to sidestep any surveillance—Viktor is the house man’s nameHis other job—to appear to be tame

Away from the doorway, down once moreTo another level, the second floor

Pavel June 9, 2018

246


ENCOUNTER

We parked within the great museumWhose every hall contained one themeClassic Greek and Roman artNew world, old of every part

Egyptian frescoes of the PharaohImpressionists until PicassoI had come there with my sonBut we divided two from one

Wandered far apart through feastsOf history—he is deceased—I searched the halls till time was doneFor him my son, beloved one

Until I found him, he appearedNot lost forever as I fearedSmaller, dressed in suit and tieNeat and frail, my son who died

So happy to be reunitedFree to be as one delightedAt last exchanging love, embraced,So pale and sensitive his face

Pavel June 10, 2018

247


FOR THE NEXT SECOND

In a flash of metallic blueIt reveals its wingsAnd shows the sky

Just as the All-CreatorReveals the skyBeneath those wings

He says: From nothingAs you call itI made you and the blue bird

And from what I have madeI can withdraw my SpiritTo make a nothingness

All at once, without the least delayI can withdraw existenceAs the wings are closed

At any timeThe mountains and the forestsThe sea and the depths

Also the cities and the peopleLight and shadowI have made and can remove

But for a while longerFor the next secondThe summer flowers

Pavel June 11, 2018

248


IF YOU PREFER

I remember they were youngBecause I’m old and I survive—They died of heart or died of lungBut now, for now, I am alive

And I remember back from warMy uncle in his soldier tansBurned on South Pacific shores—Alive and with civilian plans

My aunt preparing to receiveHer husband who had lived to tellWhat other women had to grieve—New Guinea or some other hell

They pass as if they never wereOr live in us if you prefer,Or even live somewhere, they goTo what the living do not know

Pavel June 12, 2018

249


THE OTHER SIDE

In a fit of drunken rage,The beast uncovered in its cage,He fist went through a window pane—He’ll never use that hand again

He severed nerves and vital veins,Sometimes, they say, we go insane,They tried to save the hand but no—They amputated—hands don’t grow

He works in landscaping and nowThe left’s enough, it will allowHis normal work, his everyday—Functional in every way

More cheerful now, and yet belowHe wants to strike another blow,But what against? The other side—Whatever you and I must hide

Pavel June 13, 2018

250


ON THE BEACH

In almost sixty years how far we’ve comeBut on the beach I gave my half to you -We who never met, who knows where from?But who I was that night you never knew

The other night I saw you in my sleepNow mature and sociable and bright,A memory of how you are to keepBut who was I who made you on that night?

A harbor and a ship, a precious havenTremendous and yet soft the evening sky,We have wind and starlight held in commonAnd no one needs to question, ask it why

Then last night I met you in a dream—Are you, my son, as friendly as you seem?

Pavel June 14, 2018

251


PYTHON

It was lying across the trailTen yards from head to tailWhen the solider got up at nightFor the privy—what a fright!

He stumbled over the serpentThe consequence was violentHis yell would wake the deadOr the Japanese instead

They thought it an assaultA warning, not a faultThey opened up with fire.30-06 and higher

.50 caliberA hum and crack and whirrAll for a sleeping snakeA natural mistake

No one would have knownThe serpent lying proneAt full digestive easeHad fed on Japanese

Pavel June 15, 2018

252


A SAYING

Her cancer has gone wild—stage four—The saying, though there is no cureIs that God does not give you moreTo suffer than you can endure

She says, but then a wistful sigh—It hurts, the prospect is so dimBefore I suffer more and dieI think I may dishearten Him

Truly it is hard to bearWhat God has given her to grieveThe tumors spreading here and thereWhat pious saying can relieve?

Who would suffer groan for groan?They say it was the Christ alone

Pavel June 16, 2018

253


TO SEE

To see four sparrows lining upAlong the birdbath rim like thoseLines of drinkers at a barDressed in dusty feather-clothes

Is to be rapt by their resemblanceTo four drinkers at an innSomething charming in the semblanceAlmost as if they were kin

But here’s the difference you must see—They live in everlastingnessIn homes of twigs in any treeWhile humans wander cursed and blessed

Through time which passes as they chooseTo drink of sorrow or refuse

Pavel June 16, 2018

254


LAMENTATION OVER THE DEAD CHRISTAfter a painting by Giovanni Bellini

Those are no symbols, dreadful wounds that bleedEven after death, and Mary spreadsThe ointment on them though He does not needHer soft compassion, what use for the dead?

It is a help that cannot help—prepareThe body for interment in the tomb,Such is the helpless ritual of careAnd who would think the crypt a stony womb?

A final gift of love and then farewellA human face and voice, a human glanceDeparted to the darkness of a cellTo decompose where bridal maggots dance

What can she think of as she spreads the salveThat cannot heal, or tell the touch of love? Pavel June 17, 2018

Giovanni Bellini (c. 1432–1516), “Lamentation over the Dead Christ”Courtesy Vatican Museums

255


THE SEEDS WITHIN

Blessed Virgin of the humbleAngels guard you at your back,Four with lilies as their candlesStrong defenders from attack

Another angel holds a prize,A crown within a crimson fold—Observe the Blessed Virgin’s eyesThat do not watch the crown of gold

A look of wariness and fearThat only angels may ignore,She is aware of something nearTo threaten Him that Mary bore

A pomegranate in her handThe seeds within, the sins of Man

Pavel June 18, 2018

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), “The Virgin and Child Surrounded by Five Angels”Musée du LouvreCourtesy WikiArt

256


IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO MEND

He lives around the second cornerA Chris Kyle sticker on his car,Kyle a well-known Navy sniperMurdered, who survived a war

Was shot down at a shooting range—Our neighbor knew him, grows obese,Wears a gun, withdrawn and strange,Holds a bulldog on a leash

Just so much that some can bearThat when stability is goneSadness is the shirt they wearAbove the weight that they put on

A pit bull was his other friend—It is so difficult to mend

Pavel June 19, 2018

257


BUT NOW ETERNITY

Our yard grows clover more than otherKinds of green, it is sweet cover—Cottontails can eat their bed,For them a cozy couch and bread

They are so tame that you can closeNearby enough to touch a noseOr sweep a hand around the earsThat stick up straight like fuzzy spears

Rabbit heaven we provideWith flower beds in which they hideFrom cats that prowl in the night—Be vigilant, the dark can bite

But now eternity will lastUntil the dusk and not come fast

Pavel June 20, 2018

258


CIRCE

She turned them into pigs, the witchBut that’s how pagan life will be,Each self-knowingness can switchBeast to human, she to he

As Nora slides to Mike or SimpsonHuman being to a goose,The character of all is common—Tame and passive, none go loose

Even those above belittledBy a sacrifice of soul,Who has fitness for the title—God of gods and full control?

So the world slides into madnessNone know reasons for their sadness

Pavel June 21, 2018

259


ENOUGH

My grace is enough for you. My power comes to perfection in weakness.2 Corinthians, 12:19 (translation by N. T. Wright)

The woman who touched the hem of His robeNot special, virtuous or pureUnworthy of a wondrous cure

She came to Him, no prayer was utteredNone needed, only that she cameOn her lips one word, His name

So for you, wait silentlyFaith through trust beyond beliefBe silent in your pain and grief

Who is worthy? None but thoseWho do not speak, their griefs declareHe knows all things and who is there

With you suffers in the darkBeneath the black and speechless crossOf mourning and of silent loss

Created time which heals afflictionHe will answer, give you peaceAnd then your suffering will cease

Pavel June 22, 2018

260


IT KNEW SOMEHOW

I heard the crying of a childDuring Mass and consecrationBut the Mass was not defiled

All can hear the infant weepIt mourns for our beloved ChristHear it crying till it sleeps

Whisper softly: When you wakeHe will be living once againHe gave His own life for your sake

Truly dead He came to beAlive once more as you are nowHe rose from death to set you free

It hugged its mother’s neck and sighedThe tears were drying on its cheeksIt knew somehow that Christ had died

Pavel June 24, 2018

261


THE LYING COUNSELOR

Youthful, confident and in good formIn wrestling he is muscular and ableAlthough somewhat inherently unstable

Looking like a youth he’s very oldYou can even say he is a serpentUnderneath the skin perhaps an ancient

Smoothly bland, impassive in the faceDressed in sober business clothes, his strengthIs in his trouser leg’s amazing length

He is the perfect bureaucrat in mannerImpenetrably suave and non-committalImpossible to grasp and bring to battle

When you reach he always slips awayWhen the verdict comes he is not thereHe is the lying counselor, beware

Pavel June 25, 2018

262


A SECOND COMING

I recall how they pulled at the oars of the lifeboatChasing the cone of a fallen missileLaunched from a pad on Cape Canaveral

They hauled on the sweeps, their bodies strainedAt the rolling white-backs of the moving oceanThe sea-blue waves of the summer Caribbean

The waves like hills that rose, fell forwardUp to the sky and down to the hollowsBroad backs bending their spines like bows

With a sound like the ripping of giant sheetsThe rocket had entered the atmosphereAnd the foam-plastic instrument ball was near

Re-entry shattered the falling projectileThey scouted the waves while hot debrisSpattered with spouts the hills of the sea

This a foretelling of what will beI think of it now as the second comingA secular act of the world’s ending

Pavel June 26, 2018

263


NOT BY CHANCE

She suffers from muscular dystrophyShe’s also mentally slowShort and fifty, somewhat bentIn no way will she grow

When they go to a coffee barThey give her coloring booksCrayons of abundant colorsAt which she loves to look

She concentrates intenselyAt people she enjoysFrom cartoons on a TV screenThese are her darling toys

If I am rather more advancedIt is by grace and not by chance,There is a plan by which I liveAnd as I take so I must give

Pavel June 27, 2018

264


BENEATH HER VEST

Beneath her vest it seemed a shirtRevealed itself a lewd tattooA kind of patterned dirt

Now the weather of June is warm—Why do people stain themselvesOnly to deform?

Pandemic of another sortSelf-hatred a disease abroad—Even the living ones abort

Indelible proclaiming markThat cannot be removed exceptBy dwelling in the dark

But One who will receive the soulCan see within you anyhowAnd make you whole

Pavel June 28, 2018

265


BUT CHILDREN KNOW

When a thunderstorm beginsThe dog's beneath the bedEyes anxious, and it whines

In the old mammalian programThe weak flee to a burrowThe primitive asylum

When as a four-year-oldI saw the witch of OzI slipped beneath the movie seat that folds

As dogs sense the subsonicSo children feel the fiendishIf young enough they panic

Children sense the wickedAs we the old do notOur senses grown insipid

Insensitive we growTo the evil that surrounds usBut children know

Pavel June 29, 2018

266


THERE IS SO MUCH

On his T-shirt yesterdayInitials of the NRA,This morning ISIS and belowA skull, crossed sniper rifles show

The damage of the years before,Deaths of others in a war,He will not look us in the eye,Endures his grieving yet denies

If all of us were to admitThe sorrows that within us sitLike tombstones we would turn awayAs he from us turned yesterday

There is so much remains unweptThat inside every soul is kept

Pavel June 30, 2018

267


ROBIN ON THE RIM

The robin on the rimPants with open beakIts feathers tight and sleek

Then it dips and drinksFlutters in the poolUntil the blood is cool

Afterward it flingsDroplets in sprayAs it flies away

Count them if you canSoon there won’t be anyWhere before were many

Shower of a rainShining in the sunOne by one by one

Pavel July 2, 2018

268


BEYOND MY REACH

They found a black thing on his neckThey said the growth must be removed,The lymph nodes too they would dissectA black malignancy it proved

There never was a finer soulSelfless, helpful to a fault,But cancer takes a frightful tollWhy on him this deep assault?

Melanoma and beforeOther cancers that they treatInto the center of him boreAs if he were a piece of meat

Has this no meaning or if soIs it beyond my reach to know?

Pavel July 3, 2018

269


RELICS

After the family had been evictedAll their belongings were carried outside,Everything formerly dark was exposedIndigence they could no longer hide

Food was not lacking nor clothes for the childrenThat was provided by public funds,It was the disorder of filth and neglectExposed to the sky, unclothed to the sun

Mattresses, sofas soiled and misshapenCabinets broken and spattered with muck,Most of the furniture had not been takenHis father had been an insane alcoholic

She was the daughter of desperate addictsThe jetsam of these the pathetic relics

Pavel July 4, 2018

270


FAITHFUL IS THE RESCUER

There is a purebred Malinois, a rescue dog we metRoyal in its bearing and a worker not a pet,Its calling is to find the lost in forests or in cavesThrough prodigies of following, perhaps a child to save

Its muzzle is like charcoal, its flanks the richest tanClever eyes without a white but deeper than a man’s,Reserved and yet protective, and of its smelling senseThere is no more to say except its powers are immense

So that a raft that floats on air from one cell of the skinThe dog will follow, even one that drifts upon the wind—Like this the stubbornness of God who tried to find the lostEven when the trail grew cold and led Him to the cross

Faithful is the Rescuer who finds the frightened childLost within the darkest wood, a fallen world defiled

Pavel July 5, 2018

271


I SAW THE TRAIN

I saw the train as it left the stationMoving backwards, the platform forwardsFor who can tell us which is moving?Choose your frame of reference

Are you standing on the platformOr are you seated at the windowAs the train begins its journey?So we move from life to death

Moving forwards, as we thinkOr merely waiting as the worldMoves onward in a frame of timeWhile we sit watching from our place?

The axis of the world is timeAnd we are sited at the hub—It is only God who knowsThe One who sees all things at once

Pavel July 6, 2018

272


ALL THE BLESSED

With automatics shoulder-strappedThey peer across a city pondAche to shoot at movement, sound

They grin in eager expectationWithin their eyes the guardsmen noteA criminal in every mote

An unexpected ironyI observe them from behindThe enemy they do not find

The mind of God does not forgetEach memory belongs to HimAll preserved, does not grow dim

He knows succession all at onceNo happening too great or smallEven this that I recall

When the dead shall live againAll the blessed ones will seeWhat was, what is, and what shall be

Pavel July 7, 2018THE TOWN REMAINS IN FRANCE

John of Lancaster a knight who earned his monarch’s trustSwore he’d take a town of France, I will, he said, I must,The knight who held the fortress town, Sir Bertrand of GuesclinSaid: the burg will be of France till Hell itself burns down

But secretly the English knight grew bored and tired tillHe asked to parley with Bertrand, the knight he’d tried to kill,Said: he wished he could withdraw yet by his sacred oathThe English flag would top the walls, or else he would be loath

To leave, foreswearing what he swore, then Bertrand as a knightTold his brother nobleman, a compromise there mightBe made—Your English flag I’ll flyAbove the town without a fight and none will have to die

The town itself remaining French, but you shall have your banner

273


And keep your oath and honor too, in this agreed on manner;So John of Lancaster agreed because he missed his wife—The English flag was raised without a single loss of life

Bertrand kept the walls for France and John was satisfiedHis honor kept, his oath maintained and not a soldier died,But still the flames of Hell burn on, the town remains in FranceThough honor is not what it was, except in some romance

Pavel July 8, 2018

274


WE TAKE OUR TURN

Isn’t it true that you have recoveredFrom colorectal cancer, Tom?Yes, but they look at me every few monthsAnd lately removed a melanoma

Still I take part in the charityOf the Church and I work as a volunteerFor the Cancer Society and transportPatients to their examinations

When I am seen at a family picnicIn this small town I sit in peaceWith a smile that is gentle and unforcedCalm and patient, good and kind

I would not say this of myselfBut Pavel my friend has said it for meWe take our turn to read God’s wordAt the Mass of death and resurrection

Pavel July 9, 2018

275


SIMPLE CLOTHING

They are the plain ones, brown robed and the leastSome are brothers, very few are priestsThey do not stand or gaze at sacred textsThey are not proud of subtle intellects

They wear no crown or fine embroidered vestureThey do not even sign the cross or gestureForgetful ones they contemplate the LambLose themselves adoring the I Am

They have no sandals, every foot is bareIf they could join His torments they would shareThey do not vest themselves or wear a crownTheir formal praise is softly to kneel down

As I would lose myself if I could seeThe heart of Him who lost Himself for me

Pavel July 10, 2018

276


EXCEPT FOR WHY

Something’s missing from this pictureOnce they were alive80 years ago

I didn’t know them then, but laterWhen I was a childAnd after

They are a memory and a photographBut when I am deadWill they live?

I see then now as they were thenBut will they live foreverOr are they vanished dust?

I can hear them speak and see them moveIs it only in a memoryWhich will depart?

What can existence beIf it comes and goesLives only once?

They too had memoriesAnd are those goneAs these two seem to be?

Do they exist alwaysIn time or out of timeOr then not at all?

No one knows they sayNo oneNo one

But they knowAlthough it is the greatest secret in the worldExcept for why

Pavel July 11, 2018

277


278


COME TOGETHER

Twenty sparrows mobbed some crowsHow they dared to no one knowsThe crows were aiming at their nestsRobbers are not welcome guests

The sparrows hurled themselves uponThe brigands, beat them one by oneUntil the big marauders fledThey would not gobble chicks instead

The little used their fight and furyBeaks and wings their judge and jurySo much smaller yet triumphantTwittering a song exultant

Even though you have no featherWhen assaulted come together

Pavel July 13, 2018

279


THEY FOUND A MEDAL

When his uncle died, among his papersThere was a brazen medal from the armyFor undergoing poison gas research

He’d been a human guinea pig, a subjectA volunteer to measure the effectsOf contact with the deadly and unspeakable

No one knew about it but himselfHe never told the family or othersAnd then he died—his age was seventy

They keep it in, these silent volunteersNor brag nor tell heroic anecdotesQuietly they live, unspeaking die

Look around you, who else may there beLife and death a silent mysteryWhich I and all the others never know?

Plain and humble and anonymousSeeming like us all, the rest of us

Pavel July 14, 2018

280


THEY LOST THEIR CHILDREN

She gave her eighth infant awayConceived post his vasectomyHe told her: It goes or I go

She let the little babies wanderBecause in drugs she was not fonderThan lapses in maternity

The state took all her children from herTo make her daring even brieferThe house not fit for human habitation

The Spirit tries to give us birthTo find even a morsel’s worthOf courage and salvation

I saw her smiling as she cuddledA babe in arms but she was muddledBy meth and methadone

Jesus Savior on Your throneDo not abandon us but stayDo not take our kids away

Pavel July 15, 2018

281


AND NOW A SOFT RAIN

He’d wanted a new car all of his lifeBut then when he drove it, out of the alleyThere came another that rammed from the sideThe wished for machine and stove the side in

Rammed it over onto its roofBecause the other car owner had panickedPressed the wrong pedal, not on the brakeNo one was physically hurt but for bruises

He flagged down a cab and took us homeWalked up and down in the living roomWeeping with clear tears running downI remember the clarity of the tears

A grown man sobbing but not for a carAnd now a soft rain wipes it away

Pavel July 16, 2018

282


YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN BROKEN I’ve seen the hardest peopleThe gate that locks their soulsA carapace or shellTheir re-constructed hell I am too a maskA gate, a wall, a prisonOf slight constricted visionA single simple task To save what is insideTo hazard out and hideBut sometimes I will findAnother in the mind Who says: Be still and trustI am the light, the justIf only you will open—You have not yet been broken Pavel July 17, 2018

283


THE NUMBERS

He carried a roll of bills in his pocketFive thousand dollars to pay the inspectorsWho work for the city inspecting skyscrapersUnder construction, to make sure they pass

The cladding of concrete, the thickness of paintThey may not be perfect but who is a saint? The union is in it also, and he mustMake sure that they’re satisfied, graft is a trust

God help the bagman who knows of too muchHe will be slain by the truth’s fatal touchThe lobby was papered with thin gold leafEach of the pages of gold was a thief

Bound in a binder the gold made a bookAnd each of the numbers inside was a crook

Pavel July 17, 2018

284


THIS IS WHAT I SAW

This is what I saw: A passage undergroundTiled walls, as in a passage in a subwayWhere trains run in the darkness

The boss, in their own language too,Met me there and wordlessly conducted meThe tiles were glossy and they gleamed and shone

The passage split in twoBecame a forked and double passageAnd when we reached the end he stopped and smiled

He was pleased by what was there—I could only sense it—Deep beneath the surface of the earthHe was proud of his accomplishment

He directed my attention to that objectThe presence of a thing, uncanny inhibitionA tool of their defense and of a warning

Or was it something alien, a foreign apparitionThere, within a mountain made of crystalHis pride and his defense

But he never said a wordSpeech is never indispensableIn that imperative, remarkable dimension

Pavel July 18, 2018

285


THE MAN IN THE AISLE

The man in the aisle in his motorized chairA tube in his nose who struggles for airTugs at a wrapper of flour but can’tLift it, the weight is too much and he pants

A woman who sees it offers her aidThe woman comes closer and isn’t afraidTo give of herself to the sick man in needAs Christ gave himself to five thousand to feed

She lifts up the flour as Christ raised the weightOf bread for five thousand who took it and ate,The flour was bread and the bread was the SpiritOf God and the two of them raise it and give it

The flesh is so heavy that only the ChristCan lift it and take it to paradise

Pavel July 19, 2018

286


IT IS FROM THERE

Slowly comes your mercy, Lord,The brutal and the proud rejoiceIn exploitation and discord,Silent is your sacred voice

The cynic throws a window openScans the Earth for signs of grace,Near until the last horizonFutility and death in place

Beneath the cross that was the viewUntil they pierced His sacred sideAnd then from there at last He knewWhat truth a world corrupted hides

It is the Cross from which we seeThe wholeness of eternity

Pavel July 20, 2018

287


STRANGER IN PARADISE

Here the good times never lastAnd even then there is a flaw,Something fragile from the pastAs if corrosion were a law

Professors call it entropyThe fruit that ripens also rots,Song birds ageing on the treeAnd what was living once is not

Descends, and though the song goes onAs echo it too thins and fades,The ghosts of armies millions strongBecome the murmurs of the shades

Who can think, imagine heavenWhere light and love will never weaken?

Pavel July 21, 2018

288


MIDDAY NOON THAT LASTS FOREVER

Midday noon that lasts foreverBut yielding tender is the light,Burning sunlight shining neverPenetrating but not bright

Hushed and gentle moonlit meadowBreathing shadows, light and dew,Overhead the gliding swallowEverlasting, ever new

Dawn and sunset like as theseSeasons priceless of their kind,Mountains and eternal seasBut never death of flesh or mind

Never still and always strangePerfection that will always change

Pavel July 22, 2018

289


DRUNKS DON’T CARE

Painting in the sub-sub basementOf Six Six Six Fifth Avenue,A haze of benzene in the airTurned all of our complexions blue

We were sozzled from the fumesWith dumb expressions on our faces,Painters’ clothes were caked with paintMany future cancer cases

No one knew the deadly hazard,Scrubbing brushes with benzene,Union pay that wasn’t badBenzene’s a carcinogen

Drunks don’t care that they might dieAnd air’s an inexpensive high

Pavel July 23, 2018CAN IT BE?

The Spirit Death shows you an open graveVoid and freshly dug in virgin soilThe simple earth, both fertile and expressionless

The winged one takes your arm and says to you:That grave is yours, in just a while it’s yoursWhere you will stay until your form dissolves

In terror then the tears begin to flowYou speak to One in whom you don’t believe:Why did You give me life to come to this?

I think, I feel and I have memoriesAll to be dissolved, all my identitiesAnd those I knew as well, we must dissolve

Grains we are and dust we must becomeIs there no way to stop this dissolution?How can it be that I must disappear?

The angel says, He made you to grow coldEntropy, disorder and collapse

290


Were placed within the body of creation

Help me, help me, One I disbelieve in -The angel says look down, say can it beThat earth can plead for death to be undone?

Pavel July 24, 2018

291


BUT SILENTLY

A shirtless man walked up the roadsideA tattoo printed on his back“I have demons trapped inside”It said: like those demoniacs

That Jesus met with in the gospel—Their souls with Hell were intertwined—Exorcised, their fiends compelledTo flee into a herd of swine

How many more would He have metIn places now that we could bePublic street or supermarketBegging Christ to be set free?

But silently they only scowlAlthough the fiends within them howl

Pavel July 25, 2018

292


HE BEGGED THEM

The house burned down, they found his doorTheir faces black from soot that roseFrom burning beams, destruction-poorNothing left but smoke-singed clothes

The mother and her frightened daughterStaggering to where he livedStill shaking out of shock and terror—He took them in to soothe and give

His help and what our small town tenderedSo much food, so many clothesBy warm hearts’ sympathy befriendedThat like a flood of love it rose

Until he begged them: Please, no more—I have no room so much to store

Pavel July 27, 2018

293


RUNNING THE DOGS

They ran the rabbits with their dogsMost were bred as beaglesThat whined and bugled as they ranSwift almost as eagles

Daisy was his favoriteShe ran with all her heartPumping blood like pounding rainLoyal in every part

When the rabbit hunt was throughShe’d run so many milesAlmost drained of life itself—He thought she’d rest a while

Tenderly he carried herInside and set her downTo rest a day or maybe twoThat heart’s-blood-spending hound

Pavel July 28, 2018A DAGGER

He sent all twelve apostles outTo heal and raise the dead,Judas was among the twelveWhen through the world they spread

Judas Dagger, Christ-betrayerAlso blessed and sentTo raise the dead and heal the sickBy Christ omniscient

Contradicting mystery:How could the NazareneCommission Judas with the rest—What can the puzzle mean?

On one side is a human faceThe other side is steelA blade, a tool, a human soulA dagger and Israel

294


Pavel July 29, 2018

295


MARKED FOR LIFE

I have five scars along my thumb—When was the year that they come from?The year that I refused to sayA hurtful thing for not much pay

I let a window go, it crashedTo catch my finger with the sash,Imprinted those five lines of dust—Pride and envy, wrath, avarice and lust

Read these lines and be releasedIf you recall your need for peace—Gluttony and sloth the restTwo brown birth marks on your chest

No need to decorate your skinYou are tattooed with seven sins,Choose life and you will come at lastTo be forgiven for the past

And I will cleanse your chest and thumbWhen the time to cleanse has come

Pavel July 30, 2018

296


TWO HOGS

Parked outside, hogs in a trailer,Down to the courthouse went their farmerLeaving them expecting: WeNeed to be fed immediately

Round as barrels, big as those,Like sumo wrestlers without clothes,Expecting eyes say: where’s our feed?In your fancy watch them bleed

A neighbor hearing frowned and saidThey’re both predestined, shook his headIn pity, no one raises themExcept as pork, they’re both condemned

Human seemed their hopeful eyesAs will be their complete surprise

Pavel July 31, 2018

297


ARE THERE GHOSTS…?

Are there ghosts who walk besideThe dead that live with us and hide?Do living souls in glory dwellBeside cadavers trapped in hell?

Look at those you know or passTo whom you speak at work or play,How many have a looking-glassIn which they see themselves and say:

Recognize the truth and live,Grasp the rose of grace, forgive,And those who live will also see,Escape the chains of death, go free

I see so many of the deadBlind, who live alone by bread

Pavel August 1, 2018

298


A MESSeNGER

From the front of a car in the dusk in MoscowIn a courtyard of a block of flatsHe hands me in the seat behind himA sheaf of photocopied papers Sergei Yufit the chemist’s name—He holds a secret documentFrom the Chairman of the KGBAddressed to Mikhail Gorbachev Based on the work of a generalNamed Kuntsevich, Anatoli,About the effects on public healthOf compounds centered on chlorine Called dioxins, also furansProduced in many factoriesFor agriculture, rocket fuelCausing cancers, birth defects Factories that kill their workersAs though conscripted for a warOne of many base transgressionsAgainst the land, against the people Yufit is the General’sAssistant in a laboratoryA scientist of reputationA brave and patriotic Russian Soon I will show the documentAt the foreign desk of Izvestia—The editor requests from meAn article about this paper But when I write and bring it backHe meets me in the lobby sayingWe cannot print this articleHis face was white as typing paper And so I traveled on the MetroThinking of my present dangerRepeating to the Virgin Mary:Lady, get me out of here

299


The name of Vladimir KryuchkovWas like a dagger over usAnd so I kept repeating this:Lady get me out of here When I reached the Metro stopAscending on the escalatorI heard the music of a fluteAnd Schubert’s Ave Maria Standing in the subway entranceThe flute and player were as realAs Earth and sky and all its starsWhich God Himself reveals to us An angel playing on a flute?Angels are the messengersEverywhere of God’s resolveEven in the Moscow Metro Even then as Russia diedAnnunciation had begun—Though tanks must roll along the streetsAnd hammers fall, and sickles swing Pavel August 2, 2018

300


IS HE DEAD?

At a Moscow intersectionWaiting for a busOn the apex of the cornerSomething like a corpse

A human body horizontalDead or maybe drunkAsk the copper standing thereTo give the corpse a kick

Slowly and reluctantlyWith a scowl of distasteHe prods the body with his shoe—A twitch in leg and face

How many times a day do IKick myself to verifyThat I am still alive and soRise, about my business go?


301


TILL THE SECOND BIRTH

I met, not in the body, with my dead sonWho was alive and yet so frailNot filling out his earth-brown suit, so pale

It was the body that he’d left when dyingThin, exhausted by dialysisWe embraced and kissed

It was to come to me in the first fleshThat he assumed this pale appearanceSymbolic, metaphoric evidence

That it was he indeedReturned, but I could not seeNot yet the glory that was he

Not with the mind, the eyes that I retainAs a creature of the cold brown EarthNot alive in glory till the second birth


302


IT DOES NOT WORRY

A rabbit crops grass in the old cemeteryThe red sun falling through a gap in the frontOf the Alleghenies shines through translucent earsLutherans lain under since eighteen oh three

It chews so devotedly as had beforeGenerations of cottontails beneath Brush MountainThe limestone headstones fretted awayBy two hundred years of winds through the gap

Why does it take so long for the sunTo pass through the notch in the gray-masked hillSmall red dot of the summer sunsetIn the haze of an early August sky

It does not worry, it should not, could notThe sweet grass green, the dusk full blown


303


WHAT FOR?

He thought he would stay as a private citizenWith a traveler’s visa, a reservationIn a decent hotel close by Red SquareNo one have knowledge that he was there

Instead they knew of him, let him be awareThat they knew and they followed to see when and where -As the lesson instructs us: What one lineup knowsThe other side has and they let it show

There were symptoms of fear, some of them physicalHe wondered sometimes if the signs were visible -Now on their home turf and not on his ownOut of hundreds of millions to feel so alone

And to fly in once more with cold Russia belowBirch forests, white fields and SheremetyevoThe landing, the taxiing, the opening doorTo be back in Moscow, to wonder: What for?


304


LOVE CHILD

In a polished pew at MassA girl of eight or nine years oldBetween a foster father, motherLeans and hugs first one and then the otherOver and over and overA limitless and hollow hungerHugs and leans and kissesUnfillable, insatiableAnd yet something impalpableWhich cannot be suppliedHugs arms, hugs neck, hugs sideLike a metronome to eachOscillating like a leverRemaining within reachShe draws their body warmth withinShe cannot lose connection through the skinWhile on the altarGod’s blood and flesh on offerUnseen, unfelt, ignoredCaught from the bleeding wounds and pouredFor her


305


JUST A LITTLE CROSS

What a heavy cross, it weighsThe world, the year and all its days,As much as hatred, bitternessBase corruptions unconfessed

On His shoulders, blood and woundsThe pain of which would make me swoon,Heavy burden, Christ indeedTo suffer us who make Him bleed

And you, the soldiers say, your ownSins are hardly worth a moan,This little cross, it cannot weighSo much as seconds of a day

As for your greed, how petty, lightThis wooden toothpick’s appetite—Here, heft it up, not worth much strainFor pauper-love, what paltry pain

But soldiers, I am weak and smallEven this will make me fall,Let Him lift up and bear the load—So short a life, but long the road


306


NOT EVEN HOLDING HANDS

He was a Russian military pilotInvalided out with diabetesRare, it causes him to lose his eyesightEffective treatment not availableFor ordinary people in RostovContinues drinking alcohol and smokingHis vision growing darker every day

Who will save him if he cannot saveHimself or find physicians who can help?He stands up like a monument and symbolFor humans great and small, astute and dullMale and female, young and full of ageGrowing blind and nearing the abyssNot even holding hands but moving forward


307


THIS MUST BE A FABLE

How I delight in watchingSparrows on a wirePivot back and forthNeither low nor higher

But when two finches poseOn a drooping flowerOne above the otherDemonstrates its power

A goldfinch as superiorLeans down for a seedA goldfinch as inferiorHangs below to feed

This must be a fableOf humans at a tableBirds are only creaturesAnd have no moral teachers


308


LOVE REMAINS UNCONQUERED

As Abraham had nearly cut poor Isaac’s throatGod the Father would have slain the human race,But Love Himself was born, unconquered loveIn such an unexpected simple place

Greed is never satisfied until it diesPride becomes a master and remains alone,Defeated always by its own sterilityDesolate as deserts, rich in stone

But love remains unconquered, seeming small and weakAnd even pride admits that it is love it seeks


309


THE PALACE IS ON FIRE

The palace is on fireMany separate wings and buildingsFrom medieval on to modernSymbols on ornate facadesAs if embroidery in stone

Smoke is spreading through the airTreasures are in danger thereSteward, do I have permission?There is no time now for discussionThe irreplaceable will be destroyed

He says go on, I pass withinCrowds of people stand confusedLethargic in the courtyards—Where is the building that I look for?Precious is the work and rare

The palace is on fireBut no one knows the reason whyNor finds the source of drifting smokeOr knows why nothing can be doneAnd memory must die


310


WHEN PETER TCHAIKOVSKY CONDUCTED

When Peter Tchaikovsky conductedHe held up his chin with a handWhile he waved the baton with the otherMaintaining his firm command

On account of the Maestro’s formidableExertions he feared for his head—He thought it might fly from his shouldersWhich caused him significant dread

Or even sail off to a box seatAnd land in a princess’s lapSo he held a hard grip on his jawboneTo the end and the audience clapped

Then he put down his ivory batonAnd made sure that his head was still on


311


FREIGHT

The hull is rusty, long, ungracefulNo running lights or crew appear,The freighter stacked with black containersSlides away from the dirty pier

It is the present, now, this dayAnd what she holds in long black cratesWill be delivered to the futureA nameless merchant party waits

It is my present but your futureWhen you take delivery—Into the ocean slides the freighterHow wonderful an unknown sea

A spacious sky, a newborn moonAnd freight to be delivered soon


312


THE SUN IS A STAR

The sun a star, a ringing bellDeep-throated, and reverberantJust as Adam, Cain and Abel

When brightness gathers into spheresIt knows itself as separateThe loneliness of stars appears

The stars call out, their voices lowSo massive are their rounded throatsOnly stars can hear and know

Through the intervening mistsOf energy and twisting forceThe voices of the stars insist

And we too are untouchableApart within a film of fleshA voice within a voice, a bell


313


CAIN BREAKS INTO SHOPPING MALLS

Cain breaks into shopping mallsHe killed Abel first of allThere is a warrant out for his arrest

His forehead symbol is a markDetectives can see in the darkQuestioned, silent, Cain does not confess

God loved Abel more than meAn outrage which you do not seeWho does not know, knows less

Three policemen come for himThe outlook at his trial is grimIn orange prison clothes he will be dressed

But God has given us a signThat could be either yours or mineCarved on that which beats inside the chest

Put your finger there and feelThe ridges of this stain and sealIt is the mark of Cain and all the rest

Only Christ’s compassion wipesAway that printing with His stripesHead and heart be purified and blessed


314


WHEN COOK ARRIVED AT BOTANY BAY

Into an anchorage there sailedThe full-rigged ships of Captain Cook,The native people never saw themWould not turn their heads to look

Because they only knew canoes,A full-rigged ship was so bizarre,Invisible, they were unusedTo seeing aliens; we are

Like them as baffled and so blindTo what our souls cannot conceive,Imaginary as defined,Impossibles, the unperceived:

Angels swooping swift as swallowsWe will not turn our heads to follow


315


A VIRGIN LAND

We don’t know why he was so angry—This winter when his anger burstHe drove his fist through window glassAnd as he bled he also cursed

They tried to save his hand but sinceAn artery was almost severedThey had at last to amputate—Who knows what agony he suffered

In flesh, also a spirit sting—He drove with one hand on the wheelToo violently and lost controlIn pain too powerful to feel

The car rebounded from a treeThen another, threw him clear—The impact killed him instantlyPropelled beyond his rage and fear

As far as to a virgin landPerhaps to find another hand


316


IMMORTAL FRIENDS

It is said that when we dieThe spirit goes, the body staysTo spend the earth’s fertility—The spirit lives, the flesh decays

But in what form does spirit thrive—A cloud, a mist, an air, a chill,A shade with eyes, is it alive?What outline does the spirit fill?

Dream by dream as if apaceSleep and waking interlace—Is there a different flesh to gainThat does not age, that feels no pain?

Is there a joining at the end?Do they become immortal friends?


317


A DOUBLE MEANING

The rage of man has been compressedImprisoned in a metal shell,An egg of warm uraniumThat holds a yolk of tritium

It rests within a crystal cavePrepared for hatching from its graveBy charging of its neutron trigger,Like others but immensely bigger

Greed and cunning are insideTo fuse and fission with our prideAnd then the embryo can burstFrom where it grows, its feathers first

A double stroke of crueltyTo crush the objects in its path,Wings of fire next, debrisOf cities overwhelmed by wrath

I see the nest, the egg, the yolkI see within the human breastThe red and beating heart that brokeWhen love was quelled and unconfessed

Now the mountain and below,The crystal root is hollowed out,The nest and ovum that I know,A double meaning, faith and doubt


318


HOPE

I see three searching men with empty sacksWho shuffle over rough ungiving ground—Tell me what it is you seek and lack—Something that we need, have never found

Hope, but hope for what we never know,Need to have, desire, yearn to findSomething we can germinate and growSomething like a seed within the mind

Something that will flower and make fruitSomething fertile reaching for the sun,Something that will anchor from the rootSomething that begins and then is done

We hope for something beautiful to growBut what it is and will be who can know?


319


THE FINAL SECOND

Once again, for one who killed himselfBy driving drunk until he crashed and flewThrough windshield glass until he hit a tree—Thirty-one and never thirty-two

Speeding, drunk, and clearly suicideThree kids, a second wife, and one he left—What was it caused such misery he died?To those behind his dying seems like theft

This weekend a memorial of hopeAlthough we won’t be there ourselves to see—No one knows the reason why he brokeNot even members of the family

And at the final second did he senseHow little time there was for recompense?If only he had trusted them and told—Thirty-one is not so very old


320


LONG, LONG AGO

Long, long agoAs the saying goesCradled in the wingOf a great white swanThe beloved babyThat was buried

No books, no writingBut songsAnd the quarter moonAnd souls to know


Adam Brockbank, in Mezolith, by Ben HaggeryArtist’s Interpretation of Mesolithic Burial at Verbaek, DenmarkCourtesy Daily Grail

321


THERE IS A DOORWAY

My poems are more than eighty feet long40 feet wide, and thirty feet highThirty to fifty people can fitUnder the rafters, between the walls

The planks of it are April windsSawn with sunlight over-nightAnd the pegs are the breaths I take while sleepingThe upright posts are the light of waking

Sometimes there are more who enterAnd then they wait, exchanging places—On the far end at the eastern sideWhere the sun will rise on Easter morning

There is a doorway on three hingesAnd an altar on which the sunlight dances


322


WHO WILL BE?

Forbid that I be patient with their crimes—Not I, but human lifetimes are not Mine,Innocents they terrified and slaughtered,Children of My grace, My sons and daughters,Nor do spirits drift away like dust,Disappear as iron does from rust,Ever present are they to My sight—The slaughter of My lambs will be put right

Now I will exact a penalty—An overture of war’s catastrophe,Together from the sea and from the airStreaks of light and fire everywhere,Destruction of the cities of the plainAnd who will be the righteous who remain?


323


THE BADLANDS

At the edge of the wildernessOf many-colored desert stoneAn old Lakota deacon said:Deacons died, and I alone

Am left alive, the others goneTo the spirit world, a golden placeFrom which they call to bring me thereTo join them by the Spirit’s grace

At the border of the BadlandsWe talked about the passing mortal,Of how they live elsewhere againAnd of their dying through a portal

From wasteland to a sweet grass prairieGolden sunlight, Christ and Mary


324


HER SON

The Blessed Virgin, her Son tooDo we have that grief in common?

At the end of December, after ChristmasArriving in Moscow, a block from Lyubyanka

I went to the church, St. Louis of the FrenchApproached the image of Mary Mother

Knelt for protection, one street awayFrom the central command of the KGB

And in a back pew when I looked backTwo watchers laughing at her and me

But she was there, laughter or noHer son being lost and found again


325


WAIT

I saw the place where Christ renouncedThe three temptations hideous:Bread and power, wonderful success

There the angels fed the ChristFrom light itself they baked His breadAnd on the flesh of day and night He fed

I saw it once, but looked awayI turned again, I was spellboundChrist and Satan nowhere to be found

The Devil’s voice a mocking windNo bread but stone, a stony ruinJerusalem the sky’s phantasm

The way to find that place once more:Go to the silences and waitTo hear the sounds of that debate


326


IN THE DUSK OF THE EVENING AIR

He went for a walk near the campsiteIn the dusk of the evening air,Beyond the red light of the firesHe saw the green eyes of a bear

A five hundred pound solitaryA famished and elderly maleWho could scent up the grilling of baconAs a current that flowed down the trail

So Larry walked back to the campsiteTo warn all the campers to buttonTheir tents and the trailers up tightAnd swallow their portions of bacon

But the bacon was now deep inside themA fragrant delectable bait,The bear wrecked the tents and the trailers—The bacon was there and it ate

A parable that we can learn from—There’s something that lives in the darkAnd to walk through the unknown at nightfallIs not like a walk in the park


327


I SPOKE WITH A MAN

What is the distance from here to DC?Two hundred miles or possibly more—Nobody knows what the future may beSuppose a provocative action of war

It takes only one, a lone provocation,Then the great warheads beginning to flyIn a fatal bombardment of retaliation—How many millions have hours to die?

I spoke with a man who once long agoAssigned to be placed beneath the horizonObserved the whole atmosphere burning, aglow,The greatest of all the great detonations

From here in the highlands the sky to the eastWould seem to be burning as once it did then,A thunderous sound like the stamp of the beast—The world as we knew it demolished would end

The sky as a dome, inferno awoken,Explosions afar in gigantic concussion,A tide of compression that runs through the airAnd how many days would we have to prepare?


328


THEY ARE MINE

Yesterday she found a fledgling—A broken neck and shattered wingA songbird that will never sing

Yesterday we saw a brokenWheelchair-boy of six or sevenHis mother or his guardian

What is different about humans?The weak and sick are not abandonedThe helpless ones are not forsaken

Tell us Jesus, what is in usThat makes us save the bent defenselessEven damaged makes them precious?

It is to love they are assignedTo which the merciless are blind—Protect the helpless, they are Mine


329


VISITOR FROM THE FUTURE

I saw a back-lit girl who seemed to haveA muzzle as a mouth, a dog or cat—A hybrid from the future who was bredWith species mixed, but feline-delicate

That will be done, you know, and it will beBecause it can be done, for the romanceOf those who wish to keep amusing pets,An exercise also of dominance

Not only mixing those within a ClassFor instance kinds of mammals, also fish,Reptiles, birds and boneless mollusks too,Amphibians, arachnids if they wish

But with a dreamy human consciousness—They will preserve them as a sort of pet—But she retreated then into the futureBecause she had not been created yet

After all, how broad the stripe inside?Some are swine and partly human too,Hungry wolves in which the human hides,But homo sapiens are all too few

When we are fully human then the ChristWill hug us to the Cross to rise with Him,Do not despair, He will transmute by graceThe animal that dwells within the skin


330


CAN THERE BE ANY GOOD?

That is the nature of mortalityYes, it is corrupt unless Christ leads it,It is debased except for charity—The Church of God as well it will inhabit

Chimeric human soul of many parts—Spirit-birds taste sweetness of the lightHover, sip and rapidly they dart—You are a garden of the Lord’s delight

But there is also darkness in the shadeWhere eyes without a soul prefer to loiterDream of worlds in which they are self-madeBut find nowhere to live, they only wander

Priest and sorcerer, defender-devil?Can there be any good without an evil?


331


I SAID TO MY FOLLOWING SHADOW

I said to my following shadowI am lost for eternityAnd he replied: sit down and waitUntil I return be ready

Take a long time, I said to my deathI am in no hurry to seeThe face and the eyes of you, my shadowFor you to gaze at me

I lighted my fire and warmed my handsWaiting for him to returnSaw the shadows that danced to the flamesAs my life and the hours burned

A few more brands were left to burnThe ashes had turned to whiteThe ends of the logs became a deep redAs the shadows grew into the night

Until there was only nothing to seeIn a blackness of vanishing flameAnd I was the dying heart of the worldMyself and the world were the same

Then a last moment, I looked overheadAs a brightness of stars came in viewBecause my perception was blinded no moreAnd I saw that the stars were true


332


FLYING THROUGH THE AIR

I see so many veterans of the Vietnam WarOld and grizzled, sinewy and grimIn motorcycle jackets at the coffee shopIn the bookstore where they gaze at magazines

Gun and motorcycle magazines they never buy,They always need a shave—and so do I—Now seventy and more and some will fadeBefore the end of this unhinged decade

Joe Bossey such a one that I knew onceWho served on a destroyer off the coast—He saw a line of people on the beachMen but also children, women too

Civilians as he thought—behind his shoulderA colonel of Marines said—take them under fire—But sir, those are civilians—never mind—Take them under fire—that’s an order

Observed the bodies flying through the airAlmost sixty years ago—prepareFor such a line again, for there will beAnother line, prepare for World War III

He dreamed and dreamed again—those bodies flew—And some of us will know what Bossey knewBut will not dream for long, will not surviveThe first few seconds, will not be alive

Take those people under fire, saidThe colonel of Marines—I want them dead—But all of us the same and will be takenUnder killing fire—self-forsaken


333


A DIVINE COMEDY

I asked Him for a storyAnd this is what He said:“Two people I made of mud and lightAnd this is where it led:

“Offered life or its counterfeitDeath is what they chose—Innocence or falsityAnd then they put on clothes”

The Lord God shook His shining head:“I made a world for them,A glorious garden of delight—Then I came to Bethlehem

“Came to Bethlehem becauseGreed and death were theirs,Futility and violenceConceit and its despair

“I offered them eternal lifeBut they chose their ambition—Conquest and eternal strifeEvil and its fruition

“So then I had to rescue themBy taking on their woes,I wait for them in GethsemaneWhere the tree of heaven grows”


334


THE DEEPEST SECRET

I’ll tell you a story now about a geniusWho led a symphony orchestra in Paris,Praised through all the world for his dominionOver the music of Mozart and Beethoven

But no one of this talent knew the source,Of how this staggering aptitude was forced—His parents had compelled a false ambitionTo amaze the world with a gift as a musician

He never yearned to be a great musician,As a child he wanted to be a statistician—Insurance was the art he’d always treasuredWhere everything is accurately measured

Stravinsky and Mussorgsky were his hell,Repulsed was he by Wagner and Ravel,In secret he was sickened by this fameAnd so much dust and ashes his acclaim


335


PERFORMANCE

What is the Resurrection, whyShould Christ be Yahweh’s favored SonWhile all the rest of us must die?

Give us life as once You gaveBread and fishes multiplied—Raise us living from the grave

Our graves unemptied still containThe bodies that were buried thenAbsorbed become our calcium and nitrogen

Why not all of us arisenAbscond from death and putrefactionEscape annihilation’s prison?

And why should you be God insteadOf just another creature madeThe wine of blood, the flesh of bread?

He said: I am the great reversalDeath the tragedy I wroteThe empty tomb the prop of My rehearsal

I am the playwright and the playBut you must sit through all the actsUntil you rise from seats of clay


336


LIFE CYCLE

Dragonflies live once in water, once in airAt first a nymph that breathes through rectal gillsCarnivorous it swims to catch and kill

Metamorphosed rises on a reedDries and stiffens body, wings and veinsNor swims again, but once in air remains

Hunts in daylight, never to returnCopulates and catches as it fliesLays its eggs in water, then it dies

We too lead like them a two-stage lifeFirst on Earth we live and breathe and mate And then transformed assume another state

Firstly fleshly creature, half a beastBlood of iron, bone of calciumAnd then as something else, another one

Beyond a metamorphosis and yetEntirely of light though living stillBut words cannot describe, despite they will

Death is like an egg that hatches forthReveals a being that again will beNot mine to describe, but you will see

Pavel September 1, 2018

337


THE WINGED ONES

Like fluttering coins of sunlit golden leafAbove the granite headstones on the hill—Coins, how many of them could you spend?No one ever buys them, even lends—The golden wings of moths and butterfliesThey live for only weeks at summer’s end

I knew a man who said this to Saint Peter:Tell the Lord God that I’ll write a checkTo pay for life eternal—what amount?

Catch every atom in the world and count,Make sure the paper’s long enough to holdThe zeroes in the number, made of gold

Golden zeroes glinting in the sun,Zeroes made of gold, the wingèd ones


338


THE CLOCK BEGAN TO RUN

It beginsWhat begins?Everything begins

Everything a seedOf space and fearsome lightThat begins to bleed

Time that squanders paceAnd lightInto the veins of space

Things must come apartThe body in the tombThe once beating heart

The One who cast the kernelInto the soil of timeDraws it up eternal

Life from death has slippedThe corpse becomes the ChristThe dead climb from their crypts

The clock returns to nilThe finger on the zeroStays a moment still

The corpse becomes a manThen after forty daysThe clock can move again


339


A QUIET CITY STREET

Face the one you areDo not turn or feign,The inner self is bareThe visible remains

Imagine then a doubleMet with in a cityWhatever you resembleAnother you will be

Like any other creatureStripped of outer skinYou suddenly rememberWhat you have always been

A quiet city streetWhere someone you can meet

Where you will be astonishedTo know what you have beenAnd yet surprise will vanishTo find what is within


340


DRAGONFLIES CAN PULL 9Gs

Dragonflies pull 9 Gs in a turn—Try doing that without a G suit—Those creatures of the Permian

A few of them had wings a meter wide300 million years ago—How many other species since have died?

I saw many yesterdayNot different in their form from ancient onesAbove a hillside cemetery

Accelerating, hoveringBackwards, forwards, swift and agileGreat eyes focused and far-seeing

They are not as we intelligentThey are themselves intelligence personifiedSuccessful function in descent

Suppose them large, possessing handsManipulating minds to name the abstractWings that signaled their commands

On another world unknownArtists, scientists evolvedAnd even saints who might have flown

And who are we to be so slowWho could have flown as they do nowAges long ago?

Does it take so longEvolving such ungraceful onesWho yet know right from wrong?


341


THE FIRE

If the secret police should ask youTo write a profile ofThe woman that you live withWould you betray your love?

If the colonel should command youTo fire on and slayThe women and children in a townWould you salute, obey?

If the commandant of a prisonShould order you to useYour boots to kill a prisonerWould you obey, refuse?

Once I heard two secret menOf the secret police recallOver their after-dinner drinksHow they laughed about it all

When a prisoner begged for mercyThat they would let him croakThey said: “You’ll die when we decide”For them it was a joke

Are there things you will not doNo matter who requires?I know of some were fed feet firstBy inches into fires

Angels, demons all in oneA match head and a matchSome will be combustibleAnd let the fire catch


342


DEFECTOR

He was a colonel but when he came backHe was a general with an autographed photoBut there was a chronic ache in his torso

A pain in his torso, persistent and deepA specialist probed him in front and in backBut said there was nothing cardiac

He had his promotion but planned to defectThe doctor dismissed as the source of his painHis heart but it hurt him again and again

Then one night in the USAAt three AM his heart was seizedIn the terrible anguish of heart disease

The EMTs swiftly arrived and beganTo work at a rescue to no availIn terrible spasms his sick heart failed

Had foreboding and fearfulness cause it to stop?Who was aware of his plan for defection?Was he slain by incompetence or an injection?

A pain in the torso, a suspect heart—Where is the photo with its autograph?Did the signer’s successors stop briefly to laugh

As they carved up the broken nation he’d servedAnd then despaired of - a shattered heartDefecting from him before they could part?


343


GRAFFITO AT AN INN IN POMPEII

Graffito simply translatedFrom ancient ageless LatinTo many modern tongues relatedInscription at an inn:

We peed the bedWe peed a lotSorry butNo chamber potWe are sorry dear landlordBut could you not a pot afford?

Humor different in a sensePerhaps some long-lost impudenceOf which we have been unawareAnd which we can no longer share


344


THAT IS THE WAY WITH US

He was head of the Party Control CommissionResponsible for the treasuryIn which were hundreds of millions in hard currency

He went to Gorbachev and said:Mikhail Sergeyevich, the money is flownAnd I am responsible, the concern is my own

Gorbachev replied: do not worry my friendKeep on with your duties and tasksAnd let another ask

So Losev took his holiday in the Soviet Far EastWhere there was a mortal incidentHe drowned and died, no doubt unmeant

But three or so months afterward, a late-night phone callTo his daughter in Moscow, by a drunken voice:Lyubov Sergeyevna, your father died by choice

The daughter investigated, privately, for monthsUntil another late-night voice, a drunken call:Lyubov Sergeyevna, leave it alone, it will do no good at all

Leave it alone for your own sake, you put yourself at risk:The victim had also been head of TASSBut as with other, similar cases, she was told to let it pass

Justice seems rare in this besmirched world, yet money is generousAnd when there is treasure to be shared, there is nothing to discussAnd that is the way with us


345


PARABLE OF THE INVISIBLE

Looking from Rock Creek Park in DCChoppers trace tracks through the air overheadStitch through the air like needle and thread

What are they doing? The answer is this:Sketching a network to measure and seeThe base lines for radioactivity

So that if a truck or a car should drive inWith a cargo emitting destruction en masseThe measuring tools would know it had passed

Presumably stopped before it could placeDevice or devices where they could explodeNear the centers of State on an access road

The helos are real but also a parable:Ruin’s unseen in the womb of the visible


346


BOIL IT IN BROTH

If you chop off the head of a chickenThe body runs off here and there,We have seen it ourselves—we were children—As the head is removed—prepare

An officer holding a bunkerCan launch if his links are cut offA general said one October—And then his interpreter coughed

A rooster is sinewy toughBut if you are needful of soupBoil it in broth long enough—Another awaits in the coop

In the egg that will hatch in a whileSo chop off his head with a smile


347


WHY SHOULD I?

They try to frighten us with emptinessDeath in every hall, the hideous,Darkness in the rooms, the curtains drawn,Endless expectation for the dawn

A house that’s built of frightfulness and doubtWhere doorways open in but never out,Halls that stretch along the dreams and hoursEvery breath a living heart devours

But often when I walk along a crestTo which the sky is neighbor, I the guestI hear and then I see the flight of geeseThat night has fenced and given their release

Nightmares not the duties they obeyAnd if I have them sleeping, why should they?They have their creature-happiness: they flyAnd if they do not question, why should I?


348


THIS TIME

This time the dove will not come backNo stem held in its beak,No silhouette for us to sightNo olive tree to seek

Empty sky and empty seaAn aimless nothingness,Nothing to go toward or fleeOr signal our distress

And when the ship’s provisionsRun out we’ll shout “no more—It’s time to make decisions”Though some will think “what for?”

A tired Admiral will say“What use is my command?I could give orders to make wayBut there is no bloody land”


349


FROM A TALE BY WALTER DE LA MARE

It is a great basilica on a headland over-seaUnlocked they say for centuries, the bishop holds the key,A tale by Walter de la Mare tells what it will becomeConveys by revelation where new architects come from

Old, immensely weathered by the salt wind and the weatherThe vast cathedral stands among the storm clouds as they gather,Guardian of swelling waves, the breaking of the rollersBut also bears weak sunlight on its worn enduring shoulders

Once they found the curate on a staircase, stiff with shockA sound of subdued thunder like the shifting of the rockThat formed the strong foundation of the sanctified cathedralBuilt to be eternal since a kingdom medieval

A sound of something rolling through the shadows and the heightWhich only strength unthinkable could shift by demon might,Changes of internal props and shapes of walls and ceilingsDarkness in their movements, enigmatic in their meanings

But climb again until emerging on the long roof topInspect the statues of the saints but slowly, look and stop,The humble and the saintly are re-carven and reshapedGaze scornfully and proudly toward the headland and sea-scape

No longer precious images of holy memoryBut giants strong and arrogant who scan infinityTo see their god-like duplicates uniting with them there—To brace against the landward wind at which stone idols stare


350


NO RIDER

Four horsemen of the Judgment DayDismounted, let their horses go,They wandered grazing and awayUn-reined, unsaddled, calm and slow

They whisked their tails against the flies—Sword and famine, death, diseaseThat circled round their necks and eyes—But let them forage as they pleased

Those specters that had once been ghoulsTransformed themselves and flies becameIn swarms of millions small and cruelAnd each one had a different name

No rider in a saddle sitsTo ride through this Apocalypse


351


NECTAR

I saw a hummingbird hoveringAt the feeder we had strungSipping nectar with its tongue

A voice said: Try it for yourselfSee and be and float in airYou will not fall, I will be there

So I found myself suspendedWings pulsating, heart as wellIt would have rung were it a bell

And I suspended in mid-airSipped the sweetness, effortless,Labor spending without stress

It is like this for ones I loveSaid the splendid voice I heardTo be My own beloved birds

Souls that know themselves and MeSip nectar of eternity


352


SOMEONE ASKED NARCISSU

Someone asked Narcissus Do you adore existence? "Although I am my own best friend Pleasure stops, it always ends In some sort of exhaustion Fatigue out of proportion

"I do not understand The reason I began To stare into a pond Or why I am so fond Of that which seems my face A ripple can replace

"A breeze can make it tremble A stillness reassemble Then to make it worse My left and right reverse When it looks at me What image does it see?

"Whose image do I capture In unsubstantial rapture?"


353


NEW AS DAWN

From throats of nervous unseen crows Three deep and rasping stuttered cries In woodland thickly grown nearby

They have their own peculiar words Of wild invisible beings who Are always old and always new

Old because their inner code Has plans for constant war and peace Their rasping cries will never cease

New because no history Is written down in any book Into which other beings look

It may be territory, threat Or food that’s overcome and won Still live or maybe carrion

Once I saw them strike a hawk By skimming, diving at its skull Though hitting the effect was null

At last they left it and it rose Ranged its wings above a carcass Half-eaten rabbit it would finish

Then stood above it plucking flesh Old a hundred million years But new as dawn when it appears


354


THAT

In Dresden’s history The asphalt pavement melting The sturdy buildings burning So could the whole world be Deny it—you will see

That asphalt liquifies By virtue of the heat That takes us by the feet And draws us down Until we die

Not just one but many Cities all as one Unless something is done To modify the future Look back at Germany

It was a dress rehearsal For what is yet to come Foreseen by only some Conveyor set in motion The burning was colossal

Catastrophe stupendous As it was before—But will we yet permit Such fire to be lit? Another war will end us

And would the angels weep To see annihilation Of every race and nation Or float above the spirit That works upon the deep?


355


LIKE THE ANGLERFISH

Like the ocean ‘s anglerfish Suspending lanterns Upwards overhead In the darkness of the deep So are we At the lowermost reality Suspending dim-lit consciousness In the darkness of a lightless sea

Believe There is another thing Called daylight overhead But the lantern that you raise Prevents the days


356


THE RED CARD

In the passenger seat near Red Square—In the blue-gray uniform they wear A militiaman with a white baton “What side of the road are you driving on?”

But the driver leans out over the side Thrusts out a red card, arm stretched wide, And the man in the roadway stiffens and snaps His head to one side, afraid perhaps

Of the card and the smell of a secret place As a fist of fire strikes his face, At any rate seized by a cautious sense Knowing respect and deference

Identity card like a wall of fire The Kremlin wall is not much higher


357


THERE ALONGSIDE YOU

There alongside you, the kingdom of heaven The guard post abandoned has been forsaken Christ leaves the door of the sepulcher open

The Kingdom of light and glory is there He passes through freely everywhere In life or in death you can cross if you dare

On the road to Emmaus away from the city The crucified Christ, a stranger to many Found the two friends on the verge of the highway

When there are two the Christ makes three And then there can be a unity Of God and His creatures in company

The kingdom was there alongside the road Where Christ and the two of the travelers strode And there was the meal and a blessing bestowed

The loaf has been broken, He gives to them each A portion of bread with which to teach That heaven is close and within their reach


358


A GLASS OF WATER

“Going to have a glass of that?” She asked as I stood at the sink ‘That isn’t good for you to drink

“It isn’t safe this time of year Moscow in the height of summer Stay away from unboiled water

“Safer if the water’s boiled For brewing Indian black tea By samovar electrically”

But I did not take advice I drank the water, not the tea And nothing worse affected me

Not infection of the stomach Or any other untoward thing Did that Moscow summer bring

It was as if had protection Although I had in my possession Knowledge that could bring destruction

There is a play, there is a script In which we are one character Reserve a task if you prefer

It must be played out to the end No deviation is permitted To this alone we are committed

Imbibe the poison, handle snakes Symbolically, in metaphor Though there be peace, though there be war

Revolution, uprising Undeviating, plot exact Unaltered through the final act

Act within, the script play out All the business, play the part Free will we think, another’s art

359


The Artist of the world will write But lived within He writes us free And that not least the mystery


360


BRIGHT MYSTERY

Made in the image of God implies If God is kind and very good He can aspire to be us, As we are, image made of wood

But did you know that God is One Who dwells in light forbidden us Around Whom souls and angels turn The root and center of their praise?

Who can describe what He resembles? He is not made, eternal This—The light in which we see Him clothed Defends us from subduing bliss

But when we have been seasoned much By love His is a gentle touch Then bearable to know and see What lives beyond bright mystery


361


A SACRIFICE TOO LATE

His kidneys failing, my son died I lost my own on my right side, A substitution but unwilled A sacrifice but unfulfilled

Nine years ago and still I mourn Such loss is to be made unborn An emptiness, un-marrowed bone In company always alone

When he was young I went away Married then I did not stay, The roads are split that lead aside On one he lived, on one he died

Meeting since we have embraced In some great hall of time and space


362


NOTHING MORE

I turned around—to no surprise A giant wolf with yellow eyes Heavy canines white and keen Shoulders strong, the ribcage lean

Hackles raised and from the chest A deep-found rumble, words addressed: I am a wolf but one among The many sprung from demon dung

I have come to tear away Your limbs, you are my lawful prey You know too much about the pack But I have followed up your track

Until I found where you had stopped By clues of recall you have dropped These I read by lick and sniff From sunlight steps and cold snow drift

You know too much but I can find The spoor exuded by the mind I am the wolf of all success The more of us of you the less

We looked into each other’s gaze My contemplation, its displays But somehow I was not afraid Of threatenings that it had made

Surfeit made the eater weak The wolf had nothing more to seek


363


ARTISTE

Weaving Spider hiding in the wind chime Above the silver rods that make the music—When they knock together keeping time Wind and sound become a spider magic

She folds her legs together in the night Dawn is when she labors at her work—A cunning web to feed her appetite Artistically the spider weaves and lurks

Bees and moths are captivated by The resonance of bells and harmonies Then to these entanglements they fly Where Lady Spider senses them to seize

Her hypnotized and fascinated prey As summer winds and rods of silver play


364


TOO BAD

He said: Excuse this bloody crown— He showed the circlet of His thorns As if someone who tilts his top In courtesy, some blood to mop

He smiled apologetically: These soldiers aim to murder Me But first the torment, ridicule, Indignity—they call Me fool

But now before they nail Me up Perhaps you’d care to try it on, A sharp chapeau for the corrupt More worthy to be spat upon

But no? If you this crown decline I’ll put it on again as Mine And wear it to the bitter end—Too bad it has no brim to bend


365


ONE STICK

No words required Eyes grow round: “What happened when The plane set down

“Outside of London? A president’s Meeting with The Management”

No answer given Topic passed, No comment made No questions asked

Expressions speak More truly than Words that lie—They are unplanned

It happened many Years ago Decades passed How many know?

Intuition— What was said Is buried with The long-gone dead

But still the consequences roll Through history beyond control Like billiard balls that tap and click— The many scattered by one stick


366


THE OCEAN

When my belovèd uncle died Old and alcoholic His wife stared at me with reproach As if my uncle’s anguish

Had been my hypocritic fault Because I am a Christian As if there cannot be a God Who countenances torment

Probably there is a fault Such disappointing pain The failure of our human love To make all right again

But love will draw itself to love Simple trusting-pure And love which is a giving love Is of all harms the cure

But we have not enough of it To give it all away He takes the little that we have And leaves the flesh to stay

He dips the spirit in the sea A tide to come and go The ocean is as deep as that As all the dying know


367


BUT SEEING IT

It will be some accident An ill or unintended chance That leads to the apocalypse

On that mount which was foretold To be the place where final strife Would be the ending of our life

Where Jesus looked down from the crest Above the town of Nazareth And saw in our ambitions death

Now not wheels of chariots But trails of flame and spheres of heat Titanium on metal feet

On one side was the azure sea Opposite the Golan scarp The strum on an infernal harp

Of missiles ripping through the air - But seeing it the Christ returned To Nazareth—the future burned


368


THE TROUBLE IS

A passer-by came strolling past His pace was neither slow nor fast, He stopped, looked down: “What did you find?” “Nothing yet, I’ve lost my mind

“It might be here, it might be there The mind—it might be anywhere— Empty is my hollow head By anything I might be led

“So now I listen to my eyes I have no mind but they are wise, They may not think but they can note, Left and right my two eyes vote

“Is that my mind, that tiny dot? Maybe, says Left; the Right: it’s not, The trouble is my eyes are crossed—I have no mind and I am lost”


369


SO MANY

Rain and many ticks this year, Along the trail I said: Keep clear— They cling to grass and shrubs until You brush against them, then they will

Questing find a place to cling On clothing or the gear you bring Or even to the naked skin Then with mandibles dig in

Cement the cut, protrude, dilate The vessels flowing, so they wait To draw the blood and drink the meal—The hosts are bled but seldom feel

So do the gods of emptiness Who cling and drink but do not bless


370


SILVER STARS

God unlocked His treasure chest Disclosing silver stars— A spirit watched and coveted: “Are all those fires Yours?

“Let me dip my hand inside And take a burning few, So many shine what does it mean To give me one or two?”

She took them blazing in her hand Admiring she gazed, Fire-white and pure they were The spirit was amazed

She rubbed their shining surfaces Stuck out her tongue to taste, The silver was a paper foil— The other side was paste

“You can glue them to your wings To sparkle on each feather, But not for long for even stars Will not shine out forever”


371


THE BEAR

A big black bear comes out of the woods At dusk toward the village garbage trench To it the smell of meat a stench

The men peer into dusk to see One green eye, for the bear has one Shining, growing—no one runs

At the closer edge of the long crude trench A cardboard box with rotten bacon Which the local butcher has forsaken

The beast glides down across the pit Like smoke on legs, no circus bear Five hundred pounds alert, aware

And as the creature stops and sniffs The men step sideways to their cars Five hundred pounds of bear not far

As soon as feet have left the ground The great head plunges in the box Not one shotgun loaded, cocked

A primal cult but none would say It was a worship or appeal Nor that the bear need ever steal


372


NO ONE LIVES THERE

No one lives there but The bats who nest inside, When the sun comes up The bats descend and hide

A chimney is their tower In which they hang their nest, Through all the daylight hours In dreamlessness they rest

But when the dusk slides over They scatter up and through To search the autumn moonlight Where generations flew

Silently they flutter, Traditions are inbred, But who are we to answer The questions of the dead?


373


IT’S I

Going through passport control At Sheremetyevo The officer in the little booth Looked down at my photograph And said: It isn’t you

And it really wasn’t me I’d lost identity And a hundred pounds Gone without a trace Except the inner face

Which looks out on the world In parallel amazement As that one looks at me In my own dimension Which is yours by near extension

I forgot myself, I said I’m in another body Enclosed by this one And rather smaller But it’s I, not me


374

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pavelspoetry.com€¦ · Web viewOVER A MOUSE-LIKE FACE. With shocked and puffy eyes. The small man sits at a table. With a bottle of chocolate milk. Like a mouse at a covered saucer