Coda
Always some living few—Buddha, Plato,
Christ, Lao-tse, Hindus in trance, Sufi,
Ghost Dancer Wovoka by Walker Lake,
Martin King at Lincoln’s Chair, Gandhi--
all found a door within iron bolted door,
a wicket gate, down rivers’ rapids another
river the blue that sky conceals, pearl in
oyster shell by pearl enclosed, secret smile
spreading down Tragedy’s bronze mask until
your face appears, tearless, radiant, happily
amazed to join the laughing cast of slain
who’ve left the play, audience applauding
for curtain call and stage still richly strewn
with costumed remains, once cumbersome
as knight’s apparel—slatted visor, blinders
for charging valiant steed—obscuring then
players’ best view to focus like a telescope
one red rose that presses, prodding armor
to trace and purse in unfolding rings of steel
fresh petals for the lance’s scarlet bloom.
Always some living few—Buddha, Plato,
Christ, Lao-tse, Hindus in trance, Sufi,
Ghost Dancer Wovoka by Walker Lake,
Martin King at Lincoln’s Chair, Gandhi--
all found a door within iron bolted door,
a wicket gate, down rivers’ rapids another
river the blue that sky conceals, pearl in
oyster shell by pearl enclosed, secret smile
spreading down Tragedy’s bronze mask until
your face appears, tearless, radiant, happily
amazed to join the laughing cast of slain
who’ve left the play, audience applauding
for curtain call and stage still richly strewn
with costumed remains, once cumbersome
as knight’s apparel—slatted visor, blinders
for charging valiant steed—obscuring then
players’ best view to focus like a telescope
one red rose that presses, prodding armor
to trace and purse in unfolding rings of steel
fresh petals for the lance’s scarlet bloom.
Original Echo
I gripped the hopeful politician’s hand
and touched 100,000 hands his dry palm
had touched, the pulse rising background
roar astronomers say echoes first explosion,
Big Bang that made the Universe, my fingers’
whorls and heat now part of that and more,
contact reversing like fallen ivory dominoes
from elephants. Eager fossils stir, wake from
sedimentary to chase, tear and devour, seas
convulse and shoot in single icy comets racing
past the moon and rocks liquefy, magma again,
redwoods implode to seeds, pearl returns to
sand within the shell. But insist, clasp lucky
winner’s firm shake and travel onward to
Washington, leap the velvet rope, grasp chair
arm, glass-cased sword hilt, wooden spoon,
yellowed dentures sinking red roots back to
Africa before Blacks wore cuffed chains and
our country’s father buys white live incisors,
each for five dollars or so from captive help
marching with King on Capitol. A different
way recall, star sheen of Geronimo’s smooth
stolen cranium Skull and Bones keeps locked
at Yale for secret ceremonies. Feel blinding
Arizona sun, Bering Strait’s snow bridge, mukluks
of seal on soles of feet, fur of polar bear, caribou
about your neck. Hear ten million hooves pound
frozen tundra, prophecy of stampeding herds of
buffalo and antelope, fierce conquistadors’ lost
stallions spreading tribe to tribe across the plain’s
green ocean where each grass blade remembers
prairie fire, the first spark kindled by a meteor.
I gripped the hopeful politician’s hand
and touched 100,000 hands his dry palm
had touched, the pulse rising background
roar astronomers say echoes first explosion,
Big Bang that made the Universe, my fingers’
whorls and heat now part of that and more,
contact reversing like fallen ivory dominoes
from elephants. Eager fossils stir, wake from
sedimentary to chase, tear and devour, seas
convulse and shoot in single icy comets racing
past the moon and rocks liquefy, magma again,
redwoods implode to seeds, pearl returns to
sand within the shell. But insist, clasp lucky
winner’s firm shake and travel onward to
Washington, leap the velvet rope, grasp chair
arm, glass-cased sword hilt, wooden spoon,
yellowed dentures sinking red roots back to
Africa before Blacks wore cuffed chains and
our country’s father buys white live incisors,
each for five dollars or so from captive help
marching with King on Capitol. A different
way recall, star sheen of Geronimo’s smooth
stolen cranium Skull and Bones keeps locked
at Yale for secret ceremonies. Feel blinding
Arizona sun, Bering Strait’s snow bridge, mukluks
of seal on soles of feet, fur of polar bear, caribou
about your neck. Hear ten million hooves pound
frozen tundra, prophecy of stampeding herds of
buffalo and antelope, fierce conquistadors’ lost
stallions spreading tribe to tribe across the plain’s
green ocean where each grass blade remembers
prairie fire, the first spark kindled by a meteor.
