If you know that you
Are less than God, then you Are wise, your mind is a Rabbit that leaps forward, a billet-doux To train wheels and passion flowers, You see the sap rising, you Are a boat rocking slightly On the waves; but fall through, Lie in an opium stupor, scuttle Beneath the trailing arm, huddle In a hole in a cracked wall. The sun shines above the muddle, Its light is more than any eye Can bear, the transparent water Shimmers high above the hermit crab, It is the light of the tiara of the daughter, The eye of the common myna, Which sees the life that streams, That surges, the bright surprise With which the wheat field teems.
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The king breaks through a fence
To create his own path. He breaks down Newton’s wall And scribbles a new math. The ruins are restored by A man who knows ruins, (he was born That way) and the trick to pick A rose is to avoid the thorn. Sometimes everything crashes Until the smoke billows out To the road, until the throat Is choked and cannot shout, But the white-faced man Will climb out of the crevasse, Everyone who sought beauty On the crashed mountain pass, Who wanted more than What they knew they wanted, who Died in their sleep and frustration, “Gather my lovers to Me, who were, in the end, Faithful.” Once, they had leaped And died, now they stride Where until now we have creeped, And even if, the second time, We weren’t high enough, the third Time, the people of the aleph, The limbs that had been injured, The sapling that was pulled out Of the ground will be replanted, The homes will spread upon the hills, Permission will be granted To swear in the living name Of the just and the fair, and Those who had been as far As Stanford, in quicksand, Will build a stone home. Even They will be guides and singers States the master beyond math Whose every speech lingers. The glinting flames of water surge
And break the banks, waves surge From outside and from inside and Swirl and clash and merge. The molecules that life depends upon Blur, the reverberating feelings Blast waves pulsing through the banks, The banks crumble, and then healings, Halos, surround the sand, cisterns, Driving rain, the desert town Is rebuilt, a new town with an Old glow, a silver crown. The whole world is in a sandwich,
It is narrow but it is tall, On the inside it is vast, So that the radiant songs pall Of the inner forest with its Burled trees, with its black- Eyed bluebirds, spreading Across mountains, on the back Of hills. Sometimes a bear trap Snaps, the bear roras and drops His head. Then the lights of Love and awe, in the copse The psychedelic passiflora Bunched shrubs across the dun Trunks of dim trees, the wind Stirs, and gilds the web spun, And the water trickling down The hillside soaks the crinkling Lichen, the moss grows soft It is all revealed, in a sense,
Everything permissible, everything That swings from thought to thought, All the balls of hail that ping And bounce upon the sidewalk, All the freewheeling, the canvases, All of it is free, from Houston Street To Salsbury, the drinks that fizz, The soul picks up its leather Luggage, it’s standing at the top Of a hill with a long scarf And no way that it can drop, But—it still hasn’t found A house to live in, it still Hasn’t found a tower, it Cannot yet cross the sill And take the car, it still Cannot travel thoughout The length and breadth of the mind And history, inside and out. From the top of the cosmos,
From the checkerboard where time Goes forwards and backwards, From the top of the paradigm, From the granite fathers Of the world, an inheritance Of freedom, of service Of vast circumference, Revealing the heart, the veins And arteries, crystal lights And cement sidewalks, that snaps Holy photographs, bright insights, Of every fact, of every form Of life, of every imagery Of time, of all the flicking Frames of syzygy. If we are stunned by a conception
So large that the entire Universe cannot fit inside, Let our heart not crackle with fire. If shafts of light blur our sight, So that the colors are stained And dim, out-of-focus threads Of flame hover before us, veined, That is the start of the weaving Of clear lights, of lines Rich with life, strong Boulders, rain-dropping pines. With that, we stride with vigor, and We find ourselves amidst green Shadows of trees, we go up A mountain to where a keen Wind skirts the edge between Being and no being, we come To a place space ceases to matter, The patter of numbers creates no sum, There is delight, the world Is Rembrandt and van Gogh, The mansion doors swing open, Every space is emptied of imbroglio. The strength of our song will rise, The dew hanging in the shrubs Will whisper, we will hear secrets, The formulas of heaven and cubs’ Mewls, and palisades that zigzag On the cliffs, the river courses And it surges, we watch it on the bridge, It rushes with the strength of horses. It gets in your bones, it seems
So high-falutin’ but it gets In your bones; it gets in your Walk, it sets aside regrets; It gets in your thoughts, in The rooms and the roads, in The crampons and belaying ropes; In going to get aspirin; In seeing the ground of being The history of volcanoes in a slab Of stone; in these all, the light That soaks through the drab. Otherwise, you are seized up, The sidewalk is angled, the air Is damp, the sky lowers, Everything is shoddy, a porch chair, A glass ornament, an overweight Cat, just a street, a fence, Orange flowers, cars sliding, A brooding of inconsequence, You cannot, inside yourself, Soar, you cannot, inside Yourself, live, you yearn For the crash and sliding of the tide. If we don’t reveal—through a
Return to you not because We are afraid, not because we Seek applause, or follow laws; Through a faith that meets you In the park, that sights you Where the traffic swells, where In the dark smoke blights you; In the orchard, where the showy Apples keep their seeds concealed, In the field, where puffballs Free their spores; or a yield Of golden sparks in a sifting pan; Of ore shoots and hidden veins-- The light that hovers, not white, But not not-white, then hurricanes Strap the coast, drive mud upon The trunks, drive down the hawks, Strip the maples and hollyhocks, Batter and flatten the wheat stalks, The osprey staggers, its wing dragging, The sky, its natural home, is gray, Is shattering with pellets of rain, Till at night it sees the Milky Way. The first thought requires
No adjustment—the thought of how The cosmos ought to be-- The spin ice and the Holstein cow, Because, you understand, If you do something right, You don’t have to change Your mind. That isn’t so bright To create a house and then seek Variances. But once the house Was built and the children Playing, laundry drying, one spouse Saying, “Dear, I think we need To talk,” the power of their life Stretches, pulses, causes Re-evaluations, the knife On the mantel could hurt someone, The cat seeks a chaise longue To trim its nails, the dripping Trail of a soapy sponge, Then you cry, Oh Architect! I know I don’t deserve it, But please come back, adjust This home, somehow I don’t fit. To exist, to fit right there, Right there in the plans, Is sweet, is approved, Attested to by artisans, Fitting into the deep structure, The force of tau or quark or color, That justifies its nature A sweet, tornadoing cruller. |
Yaacov David Shulman
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