Wednesday, December 12, 2012

QU4RTETS, revisted (After Bruce Herman, T.S. Eliot)

I. Spring

We would not be young.
We would like to know,
sap cloying
to our clothes.
Sway in wind, groan
under breath.

Over
our heads,
eight umber
tablets,    angels. 
Angels’ tablets.
I carved into the smooth
side his name as well
as mine.



II. Summer

Turn back,
come in.
Welcome into skin.
Suit us
to yourself,
Move us.

We are
kicking, flecked
with blood,
peeled wet,
clean and yet
not sanitized.
Press us with
your eyes.



III. Autumn

In fires and floods
our past is lost.
Beneath
we cannot see.
We did not seal
or copy,
now they wrinkle,
flake, recede.

God forbid
we forget
these lost
and costly things,
bright as pain,
striated wine
dripping down
a tree.



IV. Winter

We have come
into ourselves
more beautifully
than bent head
under wing.
Illumined, half erased.
Past the bleached
bones already.

You wrap us in
transparent paper,
ashes. Smoke
of incense lingers.
Composed, rescinded,
stroke the loosened
skin along our fingers.




http://bruceherman.com/fourqu4rtets.php

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