Telling secrets

in the secret places of the stairs:

Fingertips, like lighted candles,

reaching out, from the dark

                       (O my dove, thou art

in the secret places of the stairs)

reaching out from the clefts of the rock,

from the secret places of the stairs;

reaching out, going out, going dark

in the secret places of the stairs.

O daughters of Jerusalem,

I am black but comely,

like a tent at midnight

with a lion crouching at its door,

sniffing at its door,

under a full moon in an empty sky

on a black night of a blacker god

who whispers secrets to the lost men

giggling in the secret places of the stairs –

the congregation of the lost men, the broken men,

the men sans hair, sans teeth, sans everything.

I cannot bear to keep them anymore,

these secrets of the secret places of the stairs,

nor dare I speak them

even though you question me incessantly,

                              “Speak! Why do you never speak?”

I never speak because I lost my tongue

where the dead men left their bones

and the living pick at them.

I dare not speak

except to those who cannot hear,

who have no ears to hear,

but hide in fear

among the secret places of the stairs,

squatting in the dust

and muttering their prayers

to a black god in a blacker sky

surrounding a dead moon

on a still night

in the secret places of the stairs.

The one-eyed man
in seven-league boots
and four-and-twenty maidens
in four-and-twenty rows

wiggles his fingers
and nibbles their toes.

          Nibble, nibble
          little mousey;
          nibble, nibble
          at my housey.

Of gingerbread said
the one-eyed man;
try and catch me, if you can.

               * * * *

Time at the speed of light stands still.
So, hurry up please, it’s time.
Hurry up at the speed of light,
at the speed of light, hurry

up the hill to the broken crown,
up the hill where they all fall down,
up the hill where the fathers say,

“Come what may!
                          I’m going!
                                        God help me!”

“O lost, and by the wind grieved, Ghost, come back again.” Thomas Wolfe

These leaves,
they all fall down;
are falling down
with the sound of falling leaves
they fall, silent, to the ground.

And all are falling;
this hand, too, it falls:
it falls upon the page.
        upon the word.
                upon the stone.
                        upon the leaf.
                                upon the door.

It falls;
and having fallen,

falls no more.

King Wu Wen presented me

            with a hundred tortoises.

I fed the flesh to a hundred beggars,

              and the shells I used for divination –

cast them into fire and read the cracks

               the fire made along their backs.

Nothing furthers, they said. Also,

               Every ending is a new beginning.

“Such nonsense!” I spat,

              and beheaded the cat.

But what can one expect from empty tortoise shells?

             Or old wise men like King Wu Wen? 

Under the surface,

under the slick of oil

spreading over the slick

of conceit;

                     under the tock

of the me. me. me.

ticks the I. I. I.

that watches, watches, watches

as we die, die, die.

                          Waits and watches, watches and waits –

this unseen, unwatched, watching Seer.

               And we who have no house,

no house at all

                      (nor do we build one

on this chilly Tuesday

when Winter, crouching on its haunches,

stalks the Fall)

                      we, too, wait and watch,

watch and wait;

                        paint our lips with blood,

our eyes with death,

pucker up and hold our breath

in hot anticipation.

                            But, lacking inspiration,

mistake the mustard seed

between our teeth

for a bit of food

and spit it out lest we offend.

The end.

          Here, in the Valley of Bones,

where the scorpion mocks the turtle

as the turtle dies

and curses the scorpion

for its lies;

           where dead men return,

and stones return,

and children’s teeth return;

here, at Elephant’s End,

we play cat’s cradle in the dirt,

where a little dog laughs

to see such sport,

and the wayward dish

returns.

     Three went into the garden dark

where secrets are kept for keeping;

one returned and one went mad,

and one remains there, sleeping.

But who is the fourth who walks through flames

around the garden wall,

weaving forbidden holy names

into the fringes of his shawl?

      In the beginning was the word,

and by the word all things created;

yet it is said (and I have heard)

that by the word shall the word

itself be abrogated.

So ’round and ’round the garden wall

walks the one who walks in flames,

listening for the third to call,

from inside that garden wall,

when he hears the waiting word

spoken from among his names.

The hermit of the marsh,

squatting in his thatchy hut alone,

painted his face with mud and chanted, Om.

Sounds among the yarrow stalks:

             shaking pumpkins;

                          floating bones;

                                    drowning bees;

                                               awakening stones.

We searched for omens in each of these.

“What do you see” we asked.

                                              “Nitchevo,” you answered.

“What do you hear?” we asked.

                                                  “Nitchevo,” you said.

“What? Do you see nothing? hear nothing?”

I neither hear the pumpkin shaking,

nor the bones breaking,

nor the bees drowing.

                                    “But the stones, the stones,”

we say, “We hear them singing.

                                                singing to the bones.”

                                                 * * * *

So now we wait again in this uncertain

hour, between the dark and the daylight,

when the Nightshade begins to flower

and cicada sing:

                      Hos-podi po-milwi. Has-podi po-milwi.

A lazy beetle rolls its dung across

the sky, while you and I gather moss.

Meanwhile, in another time and place,

the hermit of the marsh has flown his coop,

but left this note:

                           Be still, and know that I am gone

back home.

                    Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om.