Paleopoetics

Another poem I recently uncovered from my writings in my late teens. By this time I was a convinced agnostic (oxymoron?), and, judging from the content of this poem, influenced by W.H. Auden's masterpiece "Musee des Beaux Arts"

ON A CRUCIFIXION EVENING

On a crucifixion evening
come drift with me,
expecting every moment a cataclysmic roar
as the veil of the temple is rent in twain,
awaiting terror on each symbolic face
as the saints arise that have slept.

But in the meantime
come over here and watch
this dog die whining in the Via Dolorosa.
The last man home to supper from the darkening hill
(weeping for the shadows in the soul of Man
and the Pilate in himself) kicked in his rage
too hard the outlined ribs, which broken now
glide unacknowledged through his prophet dreams
and welcome him with laughter to the destined throng.

Look now behind you--
far beyond Calvary,
untouched by thorns, that sliver of moon
drops behind palms that fringe a silver pool,
and the nightingale sleeps in echoes of song.

Nothing much happening
in Jerusalem tonight.
My apologies; I was led to expect...
Well, let us go home. It's disappointing to hear
no tumult in temple or graveyard, to know
the cats of the fountain will scratch for garbage
though lions await their martyred meals.

I suppose you realise
what this means?
The leaves that shade the courtyard of Joan's flames
will grow despite her burning. Blossoms there
will welcome spring without remorse,
though we be images of a god.

In view of this
let us alter our report
about tonight, and continue to shape
impassive Nature partner to our dustborn tears,
recounting each disaster in that human key
that makes it more important than the loneliness
in the arid searching eye of the last mastodon.

But you know, somehow
I can't help feeling
the sun was blazing when Adam fell,
and that his hasty departure by the eastern gates
caused little consternation in the garden.

-CMC-