Three
quarters through the journey of my life
I
found myself within a forest dark,The straight path lost like an abandoned knife.
Dislodging
creepers, prodding crumbled bark,
I
pondered fecund August’s many hordesOf stiff-legged insects blatant at their work:
Some
like the beetle, cuirassed and with swords,
Some
like the spider with its hard-jawed bite,Others like larvae dangling on their cords,
Mucously-deporting
in the pool-bright
Sumps
of sun. Querying the dusty gloomI failed to notice a mosquito’s flight:
It
settled slyly like a flake of loam
On
my hand’s back and, slung between its legs,Innocuously squatted down to groom.
Distracted
by the pigeons’ cooing brags,
Moments
later a needle-crafty stingAlerted me the gnat was drilling dregs
From
my itchy skin. I slapped – it tried to cling –
I
swept it off and wandered on. Next dayThat bite had swollen to a hot red grin;
By
day’s end it had wrapped a purple-grey
Wadding
of throbbing flesh from nail to wrist,Immobilising fingers as they lay
Enfeebled
in my lap. Three days that fist,
A
heat-stuffed bladder gone obesely fat,Was useless till the venom flushed and I could twist
My
joints once more. I thought: no insect that
So
suffered would survive: ichneumon waspsWhich paralyse their fated prey so that
Their
larvae, hatched, may eat the living hosts
Are
emblematic of the natural world,Its blank-eyed deafness to the screams and gasps
Of
plundered creatures. When compassion’s furled
Like
dandelions on a glooming dayAnd lions do not nestle down with curled
Wet
lambs, where is the love which wipes away
All
tears and fashions ploughshares out of swords?That ground of being which insists this clay
Maintain
existence like unnumbered gourds
Toppling
helplessly on a barren slope,Described but not explained by blindfold words –
Is
it brute necessity devoid of hope,
A
surd, an aimless dream within a dream,Or is it meaning’s meaning, truth not trope?
Perhaps
religion is an Elmo’s gleam,
A
scintillation on the face of things,Which purifies the predatory teem
Of
red-toothed nature which, however, flings
A
spider’s weave to huddle mind and fleshClosely as abstract form to matter clings.
Mired
always, man like dogs in mud must plash,
Rarely
to reach the meadows where there’s smoothRunning, and racing streams in which to wash.
That’s
why the country folk who gulp their broth
Of
roots about the fire on winter nightsCleave to their charms, their ju’s, a lucky tooth,
Placating
field gods, pool sprites, all which frights
The
dusk-bound labourer in rustling woods:They know the retching palsy sprung by bites,
The
stings, the stabbings, crushings, snuffled bloods,
The
gougings, poisonings – the daily fareOf creatures ravenous for living foods.
All
animals are pagans, and in lair
Or
nest there’s sensation but little sense;Man only has been blessed or cursed to bear
Self-consciousness
which toils the present tense
With
memory and foresight forcing himTo know both wisdom’s fruit and Judas’ pence.
Enigma’s
gift, that skull crammed to the brim
With
sweetbreads flashing with Prometheus’ fireEnabling men like demigods to limn
The
warp and woof of being! That folded quire
Of
brain-stuff, massed by man’s clamber atopThe pyramid of things, has fed on mire
Of
flesh and fin which first has filled its crop
With
greasy slaughterings of lesser fry,So that even the smallest plankton drop
Has
gifted man the protein-punch to hie
Beyond
mute unreflexive matter’s gripLike muscled salmon leaping in the sky
Clear
of the foam-mad water’s riotous rip:
Thus
fashioned, mind assumes old Adam’s curse,To know death, judgement and the punishing whip.
There’s
One pinioned on the thorns of furze,
His
blood drops aflash in the morning’s gawp, Writhing like a spider pierced in that gorse
By
a Butcher Bird, who aching, venom-taut,
Must
plunge the creature-depths of swamping pain Until buried pupa-like in the droop
Of
death, imago-pure, a three-day grain,
He
makes a Resurrection body, clean Of matter’s sorrowing and fresh as rain.
Hence, there’s a justice in that bloody
scene
Of self-known matter divinised by ChristIn suffering, which validates this dene
Of tears – its wastes and creature wars
– as tryst
With Being, therefore good, transforming
taresTo grist, for all that is is always kissed
By the love that moves the sun and all
the stars.
===============
© April 2014