(Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire)
Then the archangel spoke. The Tree of Mercy that exudes
A strenuous air, that bears an ocher stain beneath flanks
Of white leaves, whose blossoms brush the fruits animals
May eat, when the flank of white leaves stirs, it blushes,
What the season of offering does to its scapegoat victims,
After the forces of the design scorched its cast-iron sea,
And despite what remains, the rotten air burns out a shell,
And despite what remains, some try to rebury the dead.
And the archangel spoke. The Tree of Mercy that impels
A prayer to God, it gives woe cause to worsen, the task
To ask forgiveness for asking for a greater greatness than
Can become, hoarse with asking, raw with questioning it,
Amazing seraphim, why holy holy holy and never faith
In praise, not simple ceremony, as kinship, the pastoral
In its element, taught not tools just blame, a killing blow,
In praise treachery that my mind knows not its wrongs.
And the archangel spoke. The Tree of Life that secretes
A pitch of blood, chipping the spirit, iconographies of
Things bearing their names written on signs upon them,
The white leaves blush gold in a light, icons of an age,
One that remains ahead of its own light, a train defaced
Of its beacon speeds, against spears, in the rain grown
A long time here, the rain and the snow, icons of an age,
A much defaced tree, older than the Tree of Life, in its
Age that, henceforth, no tools can deliver a killing blow.
And the archangel spoke. The Tree of Knowledge, its
Brute edifice gave nothing the angels could not explain
In three speeches enlisting what a cant of mind cannot
Put into language, and thus, out of mind, were anybody
To have something to eat beyond the evacuation point,
The white leaves tittered to each other, witness its glory,
As the train hit the brakes to avoid the collision that is
If it did not happen why does death keep being put out.
Matthew Moore is the author of the poetry collection The Reckoning of Jeanne d’Antietam (Nevada) and the translator of Opera Buffa by Tomaž Šalamun (Black Ocean) and Padova by Igo Gruden (Adjunct).
