Condemned to shine, it’s rubbed or cut and set
Within a thorny gallery. Clean to bone,
The chasing hammer cleaves – and eyes forget
Their first impressions, leaving God alone.
With perpendicular inlay of place
And time, such stone is cold as early spring;
Its dogwood winter strikes a lifted face
For silver coins; it sounds the golden ring.
Its standard currency becomes the name
That royalty bestows with spreading palms.
It bites against the grain; it drills for flame
As shadows beg to seize at midday’s alms.
The ancients rightly called it βάσανος
For proving mettle with a tortured kiss.
‘Got’ the analogy on third reading, after looking up βάσανος.
I hope this stays with me for 40 days at least. I bet it will.
If it were up to me, you’d get 10 years off Purgatory for each pun you use to glorify the Λόγος.
So the poem didn’t rub you the wrong way, then?
Ha!
Thanks for reading!
JOB
Thanks for writing!
If you’re at liberty to disclose a secret of the craft: About how much time passed between the moment the analogy first clearly occurred to you and the moment the poem achieved its present form?
I could tell you, but then I’d have to acrosticize you.
No, i guess, research and all considered, about four to five hours.
It started with the Lydia Stone and took off from there…
JOB
Well, it’s sheer hubris for me to plunk this into this particular spot, but this is a poem and here is a sort of poem to commemorate the day.
http://thethreeprayers.blogspot.com/2014/03/everybody-talks-about-daylight-savings.html
AMDG
OH good grief – this is Ogden Nash at the top of his game.
That does help make up for the lost hour. Thank you, Janet!
No apologies necessary – on either score.
You pay obeisance even as you transcend.
Ol’ Dylan’d raise a glass or 11 to that…
JOB
Well, thank you all, that is if Mr. Likona like Ogden Nash, and if not, thanks to the other two of you.
AMDG
As if you have to ask.
Well then, thank you very much.
AMDG
I guess Auden didn’t start writing like this until he moved to America.
Good stuff.
Oh no. I didn’t transcend that for sure.
AMDG