flamboyantly; his passengers
rebuke him by inclining in the stern,
straw brims the weights
adjusted on an orrery
that balances and reconciles these three
old worlds. None prates,
none analyzes; all is shift
and countershift between the trees, black wicks,
and waxen gold,
as gravities align around
the axis of this latest staff to plough
the sifted mold .
JUDITH HALL
The Cheer Regained
A fair amount was left
to
us on the hill,
So long as we accepted sacrifice:
The small goat eyes of the virgin,
The boy, no longer one of us. He was led along
Multitudes and master flutes lifted
To the sky. The shouts
We added added us to sacrifice, now
His belly slits, now thrown on the swept-together
Shaved evergreens. And we shouted in the whirling ash
For healing, as if healing were "heaven enough."
We held each other up, dancing with the fire
Up the next gold hill. The little kick I learned
In lemon crocuses.
We danced more human, or so we assumed, because
The old habits overvalued what comes in
To fill the absences,
The sleeping sunlight where the family passes on.
