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CvK |
Watermarks |
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IV. The Forest |
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And some have
searched in forests: gone in under scanning
upward stretch, under the
concealing spread that breathes life out of
blemished darkness. We enter in. And beasts once
sealed within bound out to be
named, and never forgotten. And the trees
gathered and are leaning their heads in
whispers, spindle-spiked, against the wind,
covering the paths to the unplaceable pith-point there. And the shadows
crack off branches to shatter on the
needled floor of the corridor’s
poppy-red glow, the
complement cut from green leaf. Now look the
edge of the forest and its shade. See! The blade is blunter than we thought. They came with axe
to slash and plant another forest
within the grove, and later learn to
build of lucent marbles. And this our grain
of deep-shot wood and
stone: the maze remembers the forest, and in
it moving hub the slaying of the
bull and written near: All for love. This
itself is thinking of Mithras beneath
the Persian cave astride the bull
whose flanks spurt life in
corn. It is the image found at the
bounds of the North and
brought in our sacks of unexchangeable merchandise. The stones echo and our feet
are upon them; in this way our
soles make exchange as body to body
exchange is made in flow within the
circuit, the labyrinth of the journey to the
centre where the bull gives out
his life. And thus continued, as with
you who sit so near, a blend is made. This the way the
track leads while stones and leaves
penetrate our passing. There is no halt, and as we
move there is a breathing at our
ankles. Hoof-fall to keel-shift, the syncopated
pulse passes from vein to vein to where we began
not as strangers in the latticed
link of ebb and flood: for flying
particles come together, then under heat and
weight are marbled, all
striation , whole and inseparable. Beneath moves the leaves
and a woman’s voice is heard
woven through with wind keening for
her lover. The over all his name is lost in tangle
of forking branches where birds cry in
chords against the beat of brook on rocks
in fibrous rush unbroken down
to the waiting sea. |