Envy

“That high light which is the only object of your longing.”

-Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, C.XIII. 86-87

It was a light like early morning,

like late afternoon. Yellow

and white and glowing.

Shimmering, fringed with fire;

Everything was holy.

He told me in a letter, in a look

that there was another. How good

to feel my heart change within me, loosened,

plied by love, consoled by the promise

of what I could not buy.

The corridor stretched its walls of glass, molten in sun,

leading me to the next house with its wooden stairs.

She knelt at his feet, her hands weaving.

I could be glad for them. I can, I will.

I am.

Quote: “Plied by love” – Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, C.XIII. 39

English translation by Allen Mandelbaum.

Longing Makes the Heart Grow Deep

When everything falls back strange and empty

And we are no longer hungry, even,

No longer met by desire,

No longer thrilled by the sea.

desiderium sinus cordis.

We are covered in this great love,

that never needed us.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Everything comes close,

nothing comes in.

Nothing gathers to be fed upon,

everything eats itself away.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Pantheon, Roma

The first walls look frangible as a sliver of bark, yet

They endure. As they have endured two thousand years.

For me, tucked a corner of the fountain, they are

The only walls that matter.

Attempts at permanence rise everywhere:

The marble steps, the stone fountains, the painted shops

Left and right, but only here

Does the sun send a light that dissolves time.

This room is ancient, eternal.

A throbbing cavern, an incandescent dome.

Light pierces the shadows beneath its pillars.

It is a home for the soul.

Tidy bells of nearby chapels chime,

These clang in almost-rhythmic, aboriginal tones.

Other roofs keep out the sun and snow, but this

Is a wide open eye through which all nature pounds.

Master's House

To him, who’d never heard

Of any world where promises were kept

Or one could weep because another wept.

I.

He is out of place

in a world like this. A world

where wealth is taken advantage of, where

trust is only lubricant for trade.

He is the kind of master one hears

discussed by fence posts: “Well, he’s rich,

I suppose, but no businessman.”

He grows, but he grows etiolated.

This master, like his house, is painfully visible.

Ashamed of his shoulders and large,

awkward hands, his gently crowded teeth.

“He’s a good man, though.”

Just too trusting to prosper,

too moody. Simple. Young. Embarrassed by his power, yet

bound to show it off in a fantastic mansard rooftop

and pseudo-Gothic porch. Fragile as the glass in his windows.

He has the utterly naked look of someone 

being stared at, someone American and gawky. 

Someone who is about to be left alone 

again, and can no longer stand it.

II.

Do you know I hear

your voice above all others,

even when you speak

low? That I memorize

your footsteps, know

your stride. Remember

the color you wear

and notice when

you enter. Want

to be seen, and also

want to hide.

I could not sleep. I thought

I’d sweat and falter, but I spoke.

And you said, “that was kind.”

There is a deep loneliness

I thought you understood,

in our hush. Stairways

remember as do doors, trees,

front porches, and water troughs.

I wonder if I was new

to you. Or something chronic,

old, common. You’d heard

it, no doubt, a dozen

times. Did I disgust

you? I could not

hide. We can only be lonely

for so long. I did not know

until I saw your eyes.

III.

I cannot speak, I cannot

sing. I too am desolate,

desolate and even ashamed.

I will not stay in our house, now

it is so desperately empty.

I will go somewhere and become

lost. All that is present is a single

pair of tracks straightening

into the distance.

Quotes (In Italics, in order): W.H. Auden, “The Shield of Achilles.” Hirsch, “Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad,” Ibid., Ibid., Carolyn Forche, “Travel Papers,” Hirsch, Ibid., Ibid., 

Credits: Edward Hopper, “House By the Railroad,” Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven.

Maundy Thursday

The day before

you died,

it was spring.

You told me

I was wild,

and you loved me.

The wind blew from everywhere

at once. You snatched

my hand and steered

me, through stinging

nettles, to the ridge.

We stood, clutching

the wire, swaying

like windblown grass.

You wrapped me

in laughter, drew

the whole world

into your eyes.

I remember no single tree,

or rock, or flower,

only The import

of a thing surrounded,

Here in body.

You did not know

you were making symbols

for the rest of my life.

Italics: Richard Wilbur: “The Eye”

III

I will be lost among the many things that fly.

The streets, the soil, the dry

Unyielding stones will throng against the sea

To be swallowed up, and I

Will leap into the sky, a waxing flare

Among the millions thrown against the air.

Florida

Estranged from every home, I am closer
to the one I left eight years ago. Remember again

the green anoles, the color of thrasher eggs (white or green, 

always flecked). The way the humid air buzzed, was thick with insects
like glittering specks of dust. The doves, the nut tree’s bitter leaves,
the afternoon shimmer over the street.

The tiny gold hook on our white

dining-room window shutters.

The light. The lush.

The rainstorms.

Easter Vigil: Duomo, Orvieto.

What do you mean hiding behind a red curtain and

letting it drop amid clanging bells, to reveal your bare body?

You pose with a hip cocked, an arm thrusting that white banner

with its crimson cross into the towering space of the nave.

Did we come to the theatre? Were you sniggering while we

dropped tears and chanted Christo pietà! in the shadows,

holding together the cracks of our cheap taper candles?

Via Crucis 10: Jesus is Stripped

I remember how she said, in Auschwitz,

That Jesus was completely naked.

Artists honor him with a white rag, or even a gold swathe.

But the truth is,

They stripped him.

Clothed Him in sarcastic red. Stripped Him again.

Re-clothed Him in His own robe. Like some doll to be changed

On a whim, or

Left naked on the floor.

He died. They stripped Him again, and quartered His clothes.

There is no shame of ours He did not know.

I remember how humbled I felt just wearing a hospital gown.

Helpless, acquiescent.

How did God feel to be seen in full humanity? Not some chiseled hero,

But a sweating, bleeding, quivering man. Weak and incontinent.

He must have died by degrees.

His mother must have felt their violent disrespect. She was pierced as well.

How feeble and small His disciples must have thought Him,

In spite of themselves. He had knelt half-dressed for them only hours before,

To wash their feet. Now

They could barely look at Him.

He wore only the woman’s nard. A beautiful thing.