THE HOURS
Romantic rites of passion,
Romantic rights of way
And crossings,
Are temporal affairs
Of heart versus world,
Blood versus stone,
And full, as all cups are full,
Of purposeless beauty --
All cups that are holy,
Or on the way
To the divine.
Both draught and draft,
Candle and mirror,
De La Tour and Poussin --
Image cancels image,
Toward dark revelation,
Sword and sphere,
Cataclysm and composure,
Spirit out of spirit born,
Worlds turned upside-down
Forming worlds.
A new Romantic spirit comes
From levelled fields,
Dark currents and
Dark rivers, cities, forests;
All turns to smoke and ash,
To corresponding tableau,
Returning life in holy measure,
Vision re-naturalized,
All temporal earth torn open,
And all theurgic urges turned,
Toward the transfiguration
Of the "Earth".
Horses cross fields,
Charcoal burners
Inhabit the woods,
The sky fills with hawks --
Vision returns on wings,
Time closes upon itself,
Revels end in worlds
Opening on worlds,
The paradigmatic
Hour upon hour.
The signature of Time
Is the hour (the tone),
Sound and step, at once,
Tower and view,
River and current,
Wind and wood and snow;
Or the signature of life
Is time (hour by hour),
From horizon to horizon,
From ear to eye.
GK (02/14/11)
