POEMS
James Dickey
SHOW US THE SEA
-an opening fragment
Real God, roll
roll as a result
Of a whole thing:
ocean:
This: wide altar-shudder of miles
Given twelve new dead-level powers
Of glass, in borrowed binoculars, set into
The hand-held eyes of this man
And no other, his second son coming to his head
Like Armageddon, with the last wave. Real God,
Through both hands and my head, in depth-bright distance, roll
In raw free sharpness
Of sight, and let my son come,
Exploding with proximity, and with him bring voices
Faintly around him, the sounds not matching
The size of their magnified bodies. No harm; I am invisible
With sand.
The sea, only, is on-coming
Face-on, with my boy's
Impact incandescent on my head
as he strikes
A hero's improbable stance: flesh that would be bronze,
Be stone, the form of stone, struck from within
The stone. Statue, yes: creature lured into being
By gestures it has chosen in its sleep.
