I.N.R.I.

A rough quiet was universal in the grain,
The world was sunk with a thud in its post-hole,
The land planed smooth with a dead calm
On a length of rude wood. This somber season
          Lends itself to bare scenes
          Seen in bone white of moon.
Sorrow’s sisters, the winter constellations
Sink below spring’s crowned horizons
To lend the cruel thorn of remembrance to time
As old cares cease with cold easterlies
          Like history’s cessation itself.
Seasons hewn down and lumbered out,
          These ordinary passages
          Are timbered to mean less with knowledge.
          And so, drawing us close to a return
          From exile, our souls, sand blasted
          In desert treks, are polished like bone
To dry exultations. Cuttings and witherings
Are tossed to burn, texts of ash on our tongues.
          —It is the loneliest madness to know.
          And yet, even as the moon rises,
          Dividing the sea up in a surge,
          So, too, the huge will of the eternal
          Will interpolate exalted
Histories, bitterly salted, old and new,
With nature dethroned, denuded as never before
And man besieged, bereft as never again.
          So, our wills now testify to deserts
          Our minds return to wilderness
Our hearts hold crossed-lengths of wood
Blood-soaked in a single word saying,
          “All time is made minion of
          The rising horror of love, love
          Risen once in a creak of wood
          Rising ever in a darkened sky
          Risen again, in the closing book,
          Rising ever in the suffering eye.”
So we give up the world’s passions
For one passion. And naked thus we pray:
                We will drink not now to drink no more
                We will eat not now to eat no more
                We will feast not now to eat and drink forever.