On the Rocks Looking Out Over Spaulding Island

 

On the Rocks Looking Out Over Spaulding Island 

(For James Wright)

There is no bronze butterfly 

This early in the Spring.

Down on the rocks -

No distant cowbell,

No mournful lowing.

As I listen, aged novitiate, 

The ceaseless prayer of the ocean

Hushes and sighs in murmured oblation,

Bone and stone and all the world erasing -

As the unwanted thought arrives unwelcome:

Have I wasted my life?

A forlorn cry distracts.

There suspended under the blue vault 

Over Spaulding Island,

An osprey is dancing in the sky.

The fish in his talons 

A splinter of light

Shedding brightness as he rises. 

I watch him for what must be hours - 

Until he and the sun and me

Are all dissolved in darkness. 

And I know this much for certain:

This time, at least, 

This time was not wasted.

A Long Saturday

Photo by B. Jones

So here I am:

Deep down in the hole 

Of the Holy Language,

Working a rich seam

Of bone, teeth and horn.

Reassembling God’s Skeleton

In flickering lamplight - 

Listening to my canary sing

The song Nicodemos whistled

As Jesus was dying. 

Where in hell

Did that silly bird learn that tune?

Although, I gotta say,

It’s pretty catchy.

Damned impossible to forget. 

Figure it’s after noon - 

Time to make the climb 

Back up into Saturday.

This day where nothing seems to have moved:

The torn veil hanging still in the Temple.

It’s all much darker 

Than I expected it to be,

Rain falling like an ocean pouring down.

Through it all, I see trees dancing,

drunken skeletons tearing up the earth.

I make a meal:

Bread and wine.

Contemplate every single bite 

Every swallow, every breath between

And I wonder, maybe slightly hopeful, 

What kind of day Sunday’s going to be. 

"I took the Friday-Saturday-Sunday schema from the New Testament: Christ's death on Friday, with the darkness that descended on Earth, the tearing of the veil of the Temple; then the uncertainty that - for the believers - had to be beyond horror, the uncertainty of the Saturday when nothing happened, nothing moved; finally the resurrection on Sunday. It's a schema with limitless power of suggestion. We live through catastrophes, torture, anguish; then we wait, and for many the Saturday will never end. The Messiah won't come, and Saturday will continue.”

- George Steiner, A Long Saturday