The snail slicking the leaf can feel the gust
that shakes mountains as a tremble. The fathering wind
defines the skin between object and object,
sky and desire, illuminates the space between
the fallen tree and the fading snow and faded grass.
Whatever needs meaning does not have it.
Neither the scavenging crow, nor the stripped ribs,
curled like fingers, webbed with cartilage,
of the roadside corpse of a deer, are lacking in
their rude essential knowledge of the world.
O Father of Breath, your song is in the trees.
The grasses sing, the mountain, the snail.
i
Objects praise the Lord. Lift up the meaty, thinged voices
in chorus, the harmony of mass and density,
a pure defined locus, in space, in time, in observation.
A bead on the rosary of notions, bright and shiny,
strung on braided principle. A prayer. A song.
Childhood, cathecismic thoughts: a shoe falls
in a far-away room, thuds softly on blue carpet.
The sleeper turns, done on that side, and twitches
in dreams of destination, a gentle chubby hand
loosely clutching the stunned and weakening butterfly.
ii
The husks of mutable truth are scattered along the road.
Leaves have fallen, a slow and varicolored shroud
upon the cracked remnants of what was once well known.
The icon in the sky is bright with praise and fire,
engulfed in song, its edges blurred, in bankless flood
of currents flowing to and fro, up and down the hill.
The object of praise is obscure. The song is spined
with what it sings about, the glowing hallel u yahweh
cleaned and pressed and hung upon a form
in the shape of a man and a god and a thing.
iii
The push and pull, the frenzied kiss and battle
that is change. Is there a center, when everything's
an outside force? Things fall together, lean and shove, support.
There is a center everywhere, but that's no use:
a compass without needle, central pin, or points.
Directions are all parallel, since they never touch.
Yet one road crosses them all, and the traveler slides
sideways, feels himself slipping forward,
a shape beside him moving a little faster -
that illusionary feeling, moving forward in reverse.
iv
Faith is a candle with a paper flame: what burns
ignites in the core of every dense, forged thing,
from web to stone, from bird to man to light
bending its minimal mass around the planet.
A wick of principle, untraceable and endless.
Objects, brainless objects, think in matter, pray
in linked, repeated patterns, rosaries
of mass, electron, proton - songs of their thingness.
Hosannas reside in a pebble by the river.
Praises pass from mountain to mountain.
v
The nosy monkey lowers itself from succulent leaves,
scent of security, hunger, color of home.
A voice echoes throughout the garden,
notes repeat and vary, gather and disperse,
binding Here to Not-Here, 'til Here moves slowly
on awkward, hesitant legs, plucks at the vines of music,
savors, spits, excretes - moves on. The snow
of time collects and dissipates, reveals the green
of eternal grasses, the faded white of ancient bones,
the tangled tenement of ribs still holding song.
vi
There is, in stillness, an unending motion
of potential, linkage, desire and despair.
The eye is caught in the white, rising mountain,
stricken thoughtless, hollowed. Principle pours in,
fills the empty glass. White. Huge. Rock. There.
There is a name for everything, and a name
without letters or breath, by which it is known
to itself. Here. The point of a blade
polished by moonlight, liquid, the perfect point,
fulcrum of all scales and eternal center.
vii
Islands wait for sailors, vagrant dreamers,
to discover the known, the Here, the Always-Here.
Maps are drawn, and charts are painted.
Wood shatters on hidden, ragged rocks
and silver jets glide slickly overhead.
The stars are named, and pinned in ancient patterns.
The rim of the sky is set, the maker's name
inscribed on stones, the rules of the house clearly defined.
Thou shalt. Shalt not. Here. There.
The wheel of time has sturdy, shiny spokes.
viii
Tallying. A blade of grass. The number of states in the Union.
And further accounting: penance and sacrifice,
sin and desire and reward. Labeled and boxed.
And knowing in the kneeling heart
that the hungry roar of an imaginary tiger
is real. Praise to the sky and the flame!
Exalt the rising, tumbling waters!
The words of praise are imprecise, a gift
sloppily wrapped in self, and rested on a stone.
Prayer is a hunger, or a satisfaction.
ix
Watch the movement of a stone, the way it rubs
the wind and the water, sacrifices bits
of skin, like pollen. Object touches object.
A real and an imaginary hand
meet in agreement, Principle and meat.
Recognize the craft, the skill and the vessel
of that skill. Chatter and screech
at the monstrous sword of thunder, at chains
of atoms, how here hangs together, and there.
Theology of what did this. Of how it was done.
x
Objects praise, knowing without thought, believing
without faith. A purest prayer of being here,
solid, continuous, part. Such prayer as a Maker,
Embodier, or Force Within or Without, might smile
to understand, to accept, to see it is good.
Bead by bead, the rosary of objects weaves
a spreading wreath, an O of joy and thanks.
Before our sight, beyond our sight, and after.
Simplest receptacles, holding the water of God's bright dreams,
the smoke and echo, the ceremonial host.
World without end, as it was and will be,
so be it. Here and Now. Perfect prayer of being,
God unsought and found, while tattered pilgrims
wander the sky and earth and water,
cry out to each in turn, but fail to listen.
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