Philip Dacey
WHERE WE WERE
It was a shadow scene.
Horses there would bolt
In the dim forest-flicker,
The limbs the wind took
Waved as if in lieu of words
That would not come
to
tell
The ways of half-light.
In that place wholly
Given, wholly unearned,
Nothing was either this or that,
We lived there in a kind of beauty
That was frightening, the spires of trees
Rose up to be swords in our eyes,
And low creatures moving
Dizzied us, who felt the needled
Floor go undulant.
Great crossings lived there,
Of light and dark, of earth
And projectiles from the earth,
Ascending things, that seemed
To want to go away.
We were caught at the crossing.
And when the trees would open,
The mass of the trees part as if
To let something through, nothing came through
Except everything beyond
The veil the rent trees were,
And I think it was enough for us.
No one complained, though our bodies
Made a music flecked with discord.
(How fine the discord flecked us,
A decoration for aristocrats!)
