[Introit]
Thus whimpers Creature to Creator, ‘Is it
an epigraph or an epitaph, this verse
I wear on my heart like words ignored on a
tombstone?’ Then, the Maker to the Thing answers,
‘Truly, the poet and the sculptor share the
same aim, both striving to tame the pulse of life—
to capture in static frame a fluid flame.’
i. A Pity in Porphyry
Flakes of shaved grace litter the slate, weight carved from
this granite’s face, and in its place a mistake
of attention paid, just to make hesitate
a heart fated to break, and in case the great
sculptor misses it, you take time to remind
him of how fake I looked, and so he’d better
put into his work some effort, and paint me
more polished than a gem should be, the aim of
both the poet and the sculptor—indeed, of
the gravestone carver, also—the same thing: to
capture in immortal static the untamed
spark of life before it fades, to say without
a waste of a wealth of words what gratitude
cannot enough be praised, that, for a nameless
slave of such ill-fame, to have existed at
all is enough to pave the way for those shades
of us who take our paths, and parade past what
so soon fades, this legacy our only trace
until time erases from monuments and
mountains what we each, so foolishly, climbed to
ii. Sub Rosa/Tabula Rasa
but failed to reach, those bruises and scrapes we both
hid bleeding through to resurface with new hits,
the summit a pinnacle the point of which
world-weary winds cannot blunt, no matter how
heavy their truths, wisdom elusive to me
until your knife proved any attempt of mine
to move would, by your unkindness, be subdued,
and my ascent impossible to pierce through
heaven’s seven veils, so at your bust I glance,
seven devils sent to dance, as if by chance,
on the horizon of a brow where the sun
downs itself, plunging dagger-like into hell,
the distance of your eyes—like mine—extinguished,
torches too far off to travel to and with
kisses reignite, and, shedding secrets, I
place under the rose what no longer matters
in the night: these rows of verse which, without those
petals of light, cannot be read, so carve on,
cruel mistress, and cut from my mind its plight—
litter the slate with flakes of shaved grace tonight.