Canticle of the Willow Knots
XVI
And behold two great dragons came forth ready to fight one against another.
And at their cry all nations were stirred up to fight against the nation of the just.
Seeker of sun-light, dawn is no friend to thy cause as thou might think,
Pleased as it might to appear as it chooses, without expedition,
Toward horizon as slow as the days’ most fleeting of lights sink,
Whilst for the seeker who festinates dryly without admonition
Practices perilous virtues in playing a role for procedure,
Thou art unable to ever rebuke of the nat’ral formations
Stridently rolling in cycles with hardly a face nor a feature
That can be hated nor spat on for trampling man’s expectations;
True as it seems, as I knew, as I spoke, I at once, indisposed, felt
Fetched by a lunar description of light from the lattice in new moon,
Curious eyes were my vice as I peered in the dark and a vile
Feeling was mine as was mine in the desert, its demons of dew loom
Far on the opposite mouth of the valley, its gaze of a cold night
Ambling force as a nearly inevit’ble thing, as my own staid
Spirit encountered with fierce recognition the name of the old sight;
Seeing as how I responded in countenance, chilled from the lone shade,
Here I revisioned my mind as to not be afraid nor its captive,
Distance affixed notwithstanding, I traced with my senses the evening:
Cradles of shadows concealed cloaked calls of the scenery’s active,
Donkey in bray, some crickets in trill, and a hoopoe advening;
Hanging on air, black shapes on a wing in the darkening blot-sky,
Raising of wind and a calming of things for the fading of fire,
Settling Earth to itself — broods rest and their mothers will not fly,
Frogs croak final goodbyes and the lions at last may retire —
Natural features of dusk were at odds with conspicuous figure
Skulking the edge of the field as if mocking the boundary marker,
Training its arduous lights on the path with a primitive vigor,
Coming for me, yes, coming for me soon, once it is darker;
Here by the gasping of lights I was able to see all the clearer
That it possessed twin horns curved down at the base of a spade skull,
Skin of a scaly complexion, an evil expression in mirror:
Vicious a smile in ecstasy coupled with agony made dull,
Malice alive in its dreadful demeanor, of horrible fitness,
Each of its limbs of reversing direction to ambulate forward,
Languished a walk it performed as it lifted its gaze to its witness,
Standing in stasis for minutes, perhaps for hour untoward,
Vanishing suddenly once night came and the last of the day fled,
Leaving but eeriest quiet to contemplate what had existed,
Not as a flicker of flame, but at once, as its luminous rays dead,
Leaving no signs of its presence but what in my mind has persisted,
Quizzical, horrible things as I tumbled in dread to conclusion:
Here I had seen an occasion, and wonder if twice it transpire,
Lest it were this I had seen as the second, the first by elusion,
Either had merit, and either a prescient thought did inspire,
Surely it searched but it searched as an eye unrestrained may admire,
Spirit of seeking, a spirit unclean, on the trail to its quarry,
Prowling with lust, as I knew by the hushed blue chill of its fire,
Manifest evil of rote domination, perfidious glory,
Mildly beautiful, since in the beautiful comes an assumption,
That we anticipate some new thing is to come from the beauty,
Beauty, the element always invasive and ripe for consumption,
This fell demon disguised in its pomp in the course of its duty;
What is its charge? it is lust, as my vision can scarcely acknowledge,
Lurking the corners peripheral vexed for a chance in possession,
Lust by itself it is not, for it stands force, lacking its polish,
Greater an evil or blending of errors it bears to obsession,
Spirit of crass calculation who seeks subjugation of dead men,
Where it may hail, I am certain it bodes of iniquities senseless,
Truly, recalling my dream in the garden, the angel had said then
Cleave to the Lord, for the harbingers death may instruct are relentless,
Whether the demon receives its commands from the angels of Hades,
Whether it seeks on its own ruination of those in its mire,
Trifle it not — I will watch with intent from the holy oases,
Calm in the desert I witness the shadows who gather the nigher,
Whence from behind an embrace from Hadassah had come with a shared stole,
Asking, of what in the field has thy eye? with an absent inflection,
Joining with curious ignorance, opposite-paired my bewared soul,
Passing a moment of ominous bridle of clamor’s adjection,
Soundly dispelled by the onset of wind and its shriek of the wintry,
Quivering branches afar in the garden and bending the leafed boughs,
Granting a tumult of time of a comfort I regarded simply
Like it had been in a period past, as before our begriefed vows,
Hovering hush and expectant refrain I observed with devotion
Till she withdrew, as was certain to happen, departing unsated,
Drawing the stole to herself, to my placid and lonesome devotion;
Presaging turning of elevated wind and its passage abated
Pointed my lucid attention to subtle a profile, black-flushed,
Lurid in motion but soundless as death, deft-timed to bewailed sound,
Whisked an unknown silhouette, light-foot from a crag to the packed brush,
Feline in shape, and too small for a lion, who ventures of vale-bound:
Softly a lynx of considerable boldness traversed with intention
Toward the mouth of the valley, so lacking in care for distraction,
Not to the dull huff loosed by the colt was deserving attention,
Set on its course to the wrestle of wind true-timed to its action;
Predators mindfully move by obvention, the phantoms primeval,
Only observed by its own choice, not by misfortune or error,
Such is the property fitted for hunters who predicate evil,
Calling their father deception, brutality, carnage, and terror! —
Stolen by darkness, the lynx is invisible now to perception;
Nothing remained here stirring, and only I offered observance,
Plodding in thought to the knowledge the demon was not an exception,
Predator also for souls of the lost, and with this occurrence,
Either revealed of itself for its self-same wretched achievement,
Though I wager a veil can be lifted by God for protection —
That if it scrutinized Earth for my capture in twisted bereavement,
Missing my custody, Heaven may make for its candid detection —
What may erupt from the cloud comes dredged of celestial quarter:
Grace, as it always has been, if I know it as well as I seek it,
Falls from a hand parsimonious not, due part of the order,
Cosmic in scope, as to furnish the world to its presence in secret;
Might I harangue with a further reflection, I see an example:
Mustard in the valley, to raise root, scavenges deep in the soil,
Rivaling depth to the height of a man, too chthonic to trample,
Trusting in fruitful a cultivar, seed made worthy of toil,
Every part of the plant can be utilized, grafted or eaten,
Contra the willow, so simple, so barren, so lacking in fragrance,
Rolling its roots as a bundle of knots, but it never will deepen,
Dirt, stones, rivers and homes give way for the willowing flagrance;
Plants of a parable, willow the evil and mustard the righteous:
Good can be hidden, iniquity only at most for a while,
Troubling things in proximity; good puts nothing in crisis,
God as the most hid, demons of evident presence defile;
Just as the Lord may abandon a place to its utterest peril,
Mustard ungrown will be manifest famine, denoting it missing,
While the willows have nothing to name as their absence is sterile,
Much as unclean, fell spirits are rarely for cause reminiscing,
Thus I can illustrate over and over with bountiful verses,
Willows aghast in the mulled wind, mustard the wilderness plenty,
Alternate growth in a vale of a sparse green grand to a terseness,
Plunged in vermillion soil and caramel clay in the empty;
Satisfied then with the thought — as be warranted, time it was biding,
Kindly returned for a favor by God who, aware and observed apprehensive,
Confident nothing can act as without His consent or providing,
Bided as well — I examined the image in lattice unpensive,
Paid the horizon a final regard and I turned to a white bed,
Sumptuous sheets as befitted a king, but a king I was never,
Laid by my wife and accepted the howl of wind and a night dead,
Parched but implacable: this was the moment I clung to forever,
Time has no mark on the night I described, its immunity cradled;
Mists of a thorny veridical, milk of a measure in sweetness,
Treasure of mine, as a silk-soft blossom of petulant sable,
Comfort in lightless repose as I squandered in passionate weakness
Long in the past but I rose from Gehenna, as bread as it leavens,
Graced to return, and it differed in ways I respect and accepted,
Counting it nothing, expectant as God snow-girded the heavens
Might in the same way gird of His servant to flourish perfected,
Ruling my soul by discarding of wickedness, stubborn and vengeful,
Plied from the spirit with prejudice toward a state convalescent;
This was, alas! but a wink in my eye, for proceeding eventful,
Days be arraigned by their standard, inclined for their war on the present,
Wholly erasing the vivid display of the colors’ concurrence,
Ruthlessly turning today to tomorrow with alien parlance,
Face to the veil adventitious, guarding the soon-to-occurrence,
Leaving unhued past dangerous beauty or painterly parlous,
Save for tonight, with Hadassah in new moon shade, it endures hale
After the ruinous passage we travel, as bloody as ever,
Finer than flakes of the hoary escarpment ingrained in the sure shale
Closing the valley we shared, and disposed to my thoughtful endeavor
During the next few days, to imagine the changes concurrent
Bode for the weal in the warp and the weft of transitioning over,
Toward a life-time tied to the harvest of goodness emergent
Sprung from the green-pocked lipids of earth turned swollen with clover;
Eager I sprung forth full on repose to the bidding of dew-fall,
Those dawn-manifest disclets enveloping things from the night air,
Crushed underfoot as I mustered my soul to defiantly true gall
Thirsting for work in itself, for alight by the heavens I might dare,
Finding the commonest grace as was shadowed at first resurrection
Bursting the seams of the world in reflection of God in creation,
Though this moment was stolen in time, with a closer inspection
Such motivation was given for once-dead man’s expiation,
Sign of the heavenly joy as awaits good men’s expiration,
Gathered to ancestors with fortified truth in perfections of power;
What can occur from the Pit is a choice for our God acclamation
Whether I rest with assiduous quiet, reliving my hour
Cycled eternally, else I be raised at the sound of a trumpet
After a time as occasioned by angels to a prospect astounding:
Once had it been Mount Sinai, so Zion, engulfed at the summit,
Signals the entrance of God and a covenant promise redounding,
Bringing His portion of man-kind back to the land of His past choice,
Sealing in time as had once reigned, good in its permanent stature,
Marked by no rival as sin disappears, with an echo its last voice,
Nations the whole world over will bow and be part of our pasture,
God as our shepherd and King on His throne as has justice demanded,
Though I foresee with my hope a respect for the justice alluded,
Meted in death, for as much as a man dies, man is remanded,
Finding his sentence deserving, a penalty never concluded;
Thus, I will cling to the time I have shared as the best of what comes,
Raised for a moment to pass it again is my firm expectation,
That in the business of coming revivals and all of its customs,
What I experienced demonstrates well as to this implication,
Man can repent but he hardly deserves to be joined with the high cloud —
Made for the garden, to tend in obedience ficus and fox-glove,
Striving by our ord’nary means to delight God, making Him quite proud —
Woe be upon man, neither in feldspar nor ceramics oxblood,
Neither in golden adornments nor silver distressed of its spate-dross,
First of our fruits or the life of a first-born son is sufficient,
Nothing can compensate God for the mulct and restore of our great loss —
Save for our death — for as even the sun, as the morning’s officiant,
Never returns to the place of its rousing, it rises in due east
Setting in due west, though for the sun on the dawn of the next day,
God shall replace it, but such is no case in humanity’s true peace,
After expulsion, we exiles interlope Earth in a vexed way,
Knowing in deeply affected disturbance our roved situation
That we can never return to the texture of things as they pass by,
What can be fixed is as broken before with its scarred indignation,
Ashen a memory gone with the troubling wind in a last sigh;
That is the truth of the willow in knots, it distresses forever,
Lifting the soil or grinding the wall in a slow transformation
Changing the thing so dramatic’ly that at the roots I could sever
Stopping the process in place but producing no damage negation,
Which, as I said, is the reason I pleated the memory neatly,
Not in my fear but in hope and reality-beckoned intention
That as I age and the recognized world fades further, completely,
What God gave in the place of the garden be ripe for retention,
Far from forbidden a fruit, He allowed for a righteous divergence:
Whereas I pondered botanical parables, finding conclusions,
Trouble extolled in so telling a symbol awaited emergence
High in the clefts of the falls that watered the vale in exclusion,
When I had ventured ascent to its source on the following morning,
Seeking the myrrh I had known to be hid up among the congestion
Found by the spring, dense bushels of shrubs amaryllis-adorning
Over the cyclamen gatherings, sharing their solemn reflection,
Circled a shallowest pool, but disturbed by the winnowing breezes
Rounding the heads and the parapet shoulders of granitoids dignant;
Here as the crystalline maw churns reticent, softly it seizes,
That it will agitate down underneath by surges malignant
Traveling forth from the throat of unseen tide-statutes artesian
Sovereign over its nation, its boundaries not demarcated
Save for the flourish of greenery nigh-unaffected by season,
Knowings its limits in shade and in soil, ensuring it’s sated,
Better than man and the task, to be sure, for I loped to oasis
Hardly inclined to acknowledge my handicapped movement and vision,
Till I had summited standing on its precipice, hallowed in stasis,
Trammeled by cavernous blocks in their guard of the precious partition,
Peering in toward the tenor of water and wind in its thrumming,
Having returned to it fully expecting it properly constant,
Tamely embellished with mustard and balsam — the reason for coming —
Myrrh from the sap of the balsam, the auspice who seeps it inconscient,
Worthy to find for Hadassah, as long in the past I delivered,
Though as I gaze in the shimmering sun-beam wake iridescent,
Painting the crevasse with crisp gold blades interspersing and slivered,
Here as the waters arise to descend from the summit flavescent,
Every aspect had seemed to be changed in peculiar fashion,
Mostly the things as remained as unchanged in my best recollection,
Those were the strangest, to bear no reprieve with imposing dispassion
Held unaffected by all I had suffered before resurrection,
These were the cru’lest, but worse I admit were unwelcome additions
Casting their shadows on memories, long and disturbingly present:
Once in the past were no trees but the council of balsam musicians
Carrying notes from the wind in a melody most effervescent,
Joined by their vassals, the mustard of wild variety blooming,
Offering visitors food for their pilgrimage, marked by their flower,
Foolish I proved in my periled ascent and blindest assuming,
Taking for granted the spring was untouched by an alien power
Drawn to the promise of life by a cool spring’s swollen decanting,
Now I observed stood fertile on loose ground partly disputed
Bough-proud willows with treacherous tap had prospered supplanting,
Snaking themselves wide, balsam usurped and the mustard uprooted.
a wretched thing walks the evening • it vanishes from sight
returning to bed with Hadassah • this moment is from God
returning to the high springs • willows overgrew the balsam