With Apologies to Mr. Eliot

If I could spill a word and call it truth,
Or loose some feigned remarks upon the drawing dusk,
You would cringe at gestures only known once made,
And Meanings seen on conditions of proof and certainty.
You would have me drink of patience like some Lethean spring,
Where, I, the one with a set of eyes, can see reflected that
    Which past will pass to present, that
    Which I will speak and therefore know.

I say, “Dusk,” or “Day,” or “I will love,”
And Doubt is measured out like handfuls of dirt at
    Some parish funeral.
Some death and dawning rolled up in one.
I suppose it is a mixing of sacred metaphor
To exhale one’s soul in words, like some blasphemous
Utterance of one’s full and unabbreviated name.
But how else can I say what will be?
What if those scatterings of dust
    Should fall before I have spoken my part?

Like a hidden memory that someone let slip,
Or a grossly corrupted tongue that indigents can mime,
The thought of the word strikes me as hard.
    The ancient wyrd,
    Which warriors feared
    And I desire –
    Is at the beginning and the end.
But I don’t know where to start.

“Dusk,” and thus does it follow,
“Day,” and so it comes.
But Day never would stand silent and still.
Not for me. Nor did anything
I command; the change may be, but immutable things
Mock at me, and I think I’ve seen them cross their eyes
    And turn up their nostrils toward me in glee.
I imagine they have a mean-streak.

If the world should find me its jester, and would
Egg me on to greater and loftier falls,
I would still say, “Day” and “Night,” and “I will love.”
For that’s what I was taught, and lessons learned hard
    Are not unlearned on account of the
    Nasty manners of the Elements.
And so are sub-realities beckoned up and worlds created
When nothing but voice is heard.
Let there be,
And there was.

Posted by Davey at 01:11 AM

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