for Susan Howe, with some lines gleaned from her essays
But your face is quicker than sparrows
Song preceding——spirit mouth——preceding song
But your face is more charged with thought,
——is brighter than, more speckled with dark spots
——reversed stars on the night-white cosmic breast of song
——the song sparrow’s spotted breast
But your face is quicker than sparrows
Praise the gods they are gone, the greek, the hebrew
Though the pink hawthorn blooms and the white does too
Though the thistle purples a month too soon
Though the dwarf morning glory climbs the blade of grass
——-—How is it far if I can think of it?
——-—Plague time slows the hours and opens the celadon
———–—mouths of the bowls
——-—Lynx, as the leaf guards the swelling grape, guard me
——-—Memory in the mind that precedes my life
———–—my mouth is mine to sing another’s song
——-—The girl was picking flowers, white and pink, pink and white
———–—while her mother napped in the orchard shade
——-—& the god arrives like a rain cloud riding a horse
——-—& then the girl is gone but the flowers keep growing
——-—Eat not of it in the underworld
-—the mind puts its grapes in the empty green bowl
& in the dream the panther spoke and asked me to translate
——Spring is long into greek
& in the dream I answered aeon epi aeros and could say nothing else
& then the clouds made a vesuvius in the air
——-—the mind erupts that can see it
——-—the memory ash, the rose, the ancient forms repeat
Eons in the air
All spirit but spirit in different forms
Memory the vast pompeii behind the eyes
——the boy reaches out his hand to take the bridle…
——-—but there is no horse
——the sleeper pulls up the sheet in her sleep…
——-—but there is no bed
The initiate first walks through the pornographic rooms
——& later meets his lover in the grass
Or the grass is his lover
Is it the wind, or is it the god, who has spoken
——in the rustling of the leaves
——-—Does it exist only in thought
———–—creative, subtle as shadow from a flame,
———–—the universe?
——-—Ask if the deer don’t walk out of the thicket mind,
———–—wary thoughts, some antlered, some not,
———–—to drink from the clear open ponds of the eyes?
——-—How can I think it if I don’t follow the thread
———–—back into the maze?
——-—The air thick and then, like cloth thins, thin
——-—The sun and stars dense clods of earth the earth shook off
——-—The small clouds lift up the mountain
——-—It is a fact if you can believe it
——-—You can know this as a fact if you can bear it
I’ve lived just long enough to begin in memory
There the ghosts wear facts for faces
They speak in the stuttering lightning dazzle of damselflies
Beauty is difficult
——is difficult to hear
I’ve painted the oak bough gold
——& made a half-hearted search for a hole large enough
——to step down into the dark
The blind prophet knows the chair is near him
——he can smell it
——souls breathe scent in hell
Unfolds his folding chair by the empty pit waiting
Tethered to truth and truth’s visions
There will be no story until the blood arrives
Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet, essayist, and translator. His recent books include two translations: The Thinking Root: The Poetry of Ancient Greek Philosophy (Milkweed) and Wind—Mountain—Oak: The Complete Poems of Sappho (Tupelo). He is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University.
Photo by derek braithwaite on Unsplash