Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Paterson: Book Four, Chapter III, p. 186















The Language as Virgin Purpose; or, Illumination

"Begin
at the beginning,
Brother."

This cry rings out across the
hot wood-pew place of this
summer Sunday, this
Amen! this
Glory! this
Hallelujah!

And with these most lowly
I am,
all these words in my
ears holding a perfect purpose
at tongue's long distance
from me.

Where are Your most-golden trumpets, Lord?
I ask; the angels gathered in the sky?
The fish in great numbers, the day in midst of night?

Where, in
this sun-white place,
this house of hollow voices,
am I?

And in a whisper
of leaved branches
against the nearest wall:

the words are why we're here.

---

Speak, oh God,
speak --
form me
in the roll of your tongue,
in the sounding of me
out;
stirred from dissonance
to being,
spoken,
spoken from and
for.

---

Here,
here in the filth of
this house, Father,
boards cracking long down the walls,
floors scarred and rubbed smooth
with a thousand feet
and knees
worn,
find me,
and hear:

the light is going down outside this
old building;
the sun is nearing the horizon
and the white
clapboard white
of this body will glow,
gold and yellow,
in the last light --
for a moment,
a long moment.

We do not light it.

Tell me I'm clean,
and I will be clean.
Tell me I'm clean,
and I will be clean.
Tell me I'm clean,
and I will be clean --
Hosanna.

KMC 10-11-06

2 comments:

brd said...

I love the way you are not sure whether you want God to speak or to listen. I also love the lines,
"Where are Your most-golden trumpets, Lord?
I ask; the angels gathered in the sky?
The fish in great numbers, the day in midst of night?"
I know that yearning.

Unknown said...

This is likely to reveal something about my taste we recognize already, but after rereading that last stanza tonight, I totally dig that--the repetition is so perfect--it really catches what brd's talking about there--that is the yearning we all feel and at which we wonder (wonder in the most metaphysical sense, in this case...)