Smoke from This Altar (1990) Read Online Free

cold,
    And prophets wail the times they cannot mendFacing the future with hearts grown old We only know . . . a world can end.
    *

Smoke From This Altar (1990)

LOVE OUT OF SEASON
    The spring is gone, but left behind with me Untempered fever raging in my veins, Unkind remembrance of the April rains,
    And something of its own glad gaiety; To be in love in spring is best, you see, When warming earth's alive with growing pains, And cherry petals fill the tangled skeins
    The spider spins between the fence and tree.
    But summer's come, and that infernal spring Has left this love behind-the season's wrong,
    And I should think of keeping cool, and bring Tranquillity, and less impassioned song
    To share my bed, and yet the whole night through I lie awake and swear-and think of you.
    *

Smoke From This Altar (1990)

AFTER TOMORROW
    No more but this-no more but echoes down The lonely hills, and breathless hush-did Man Perhaps, in movement pass this way, and plan Some transitory edifice or town?
    And did some brain-created glory crown This hill, imposing while the moments ran A stately emptiness that failed to span
    The years that saw his passing, saint and clown?
    Where now the bubble-dreams that stabbed the sky, The cloud-encroaching spires of steel and glass? Where now the thunder-throated guns of death Who breathed their anguish with a whinning cry?
    The scars are healed, the ghostly streets are grassMan and his wonders vanished, like a breath.
    *

Smoke From This Altar (1990)

YACODHAPURA
    I stood within the high-arched temple doors Within a columned hall at close of day, Where once the solemn crowds had come to pray And kneel in silence on the dusty floors; I wandered down the roofless corridors
    Where Time's relentless hand had carved its way Along the wind-worn walls of stolid gray
    Where nature wages endless wearing wars.
    Above, beyond, the slowly setting sun Painted the towering columns one by one, And lit the halls with mute tranquillity;
    Some sculptured dreams in dull, time-tarnished stone Looming long years, forgotten and aloneA shadowed symbol of futility.
    *

Smoke From This Altar (1990)

STEPPE
    Beneath a barren sky the crusted snow Lies cold and lifeless like a frozen sea; The lonely, prowling wind moans eerily
    And loiters, sighing, like the voice of woe; A land, unborn and still where weary blow The icy winds in cold hostility,
    While earth and sky in gray monotony With cheerless consonance, together flow.
    What bleak and impotent old world is this?
    No whistling blast, but dull, and numb, and still Unending miles where frigid plains deny
    The throbbing urge of life, the warming kiss Of fire, and naught but fitful puffs of chill And piercing winds beneath a rheumy sky.
    *

Smoke From This Altar (1990)

TO GIORDANO BRUNO
    (Martyr of science, 1548-1600)
    You were the best of them, Bruno, the best By more than the flames that fired your flesh to dust The best by more than the truth you framed your lips
    To speak. The One was All, the All was One, And the only law the ever changing form.
    What did you think as the lambent light crept up Licking your limbs with tongue that seared
    and charred?
    Did you think then, Bruno, that the flame was Change Returning the One to All, the flesh to dust?
    Your seven years were long, yet longer still The moments when the candent light crept up Enfolding your flesh with fervent
    flames to char The hope there must have been, to stifle truth With caustic brand, to still th
    e voice that spoke. Did you remember then, Bruno, that wi ll
    Was ever free? The fathers lit the fire, And hung like ghouls along its outer edge, But were the flames less bright because
    they blackened
    The lips of truth? I wonder if the blaze That sheathed your form with lustful heat turned white
    *
    Around that mighty heart? Around that brain?
    The one who muttered that "The earth still moves," He was a wiser, if not a better man;
    For aging hearts are brittle on the pyre.
    You spoke too often, Friend; had you forgot