but walking on the air
On stairs of weather, cloud, and sky.
I would not doom us with those easy repetitions
Of old kettledrumming dooms
I heard from childhood on in dull, drab,
Ideas long since gone to incestuous
Intellectuals’ rooms …
Where they make litanies of night to scare their souls
And turn from birds and skies and stars
To imitate death moles or morbid beetles ticking death
Which if we let them would dig deep in time and keep
Our flesh in most inconsequent black holes.
That’s not my game,
Nor is the aim of man to stay beneath a stone.
To own the universe, our aim. And never die.
That’s mine, and yours, and yours, and yours,
To shame dumb death, leave Earth to dust, tread moon,
Vault Mars, and win the stars with flame …
Or know the reason why.
Joy Is the Grace We Say to God
Joy is the grace we say to God
For His gifts given.
It is the leavening of time,
It splits our bones with lightning,
Fills our marrow
With a harrowing of light
And seeds our blood with sun,
And thus we
Put out the night
And then
Put out the night.
Tears make an end of things;
So weep, yes, weep.
But joy says, after that, not done …
No, not by any means. Not done!
Take breath and shout it out!
That laugh, that cry which says: Begin again,
So all’s reborn, begun!
Now hear this, Eden’s child,
Remember in thy green Earth heaven,
All beauty-shod:
Joy is the grace we say to God.
They have not seen the stars,
Not one, not one
Of all the creatures on this world
In all the ages since the sands first touched the wind
Not one, not one,
No beast of all the beasts has stood
On meadowland or plain or hill
And known the thrill of looking at those fires;
Our soul admires what they, oh, they, have never known.
Five billion years have flown in turnings of the spheres
But not once in all those years
Has lion, dog, or bird that sweeps the air
Looked there, oh, look. Looked there, ah God, the stars;
Oh, look, look there!
It is as if all time had never been,
Or universe or sun or moon or simple morning light.
Their tragedy was mute and blind, and so remains. Our sight?
Yes, ours? To know now what we are.
But think of it, then choose—now, which?
Born to raw Earth, inhabiting a scene
And all of it, no sooner viewed, erased, gone blind
As if these miracles had never been.
Vast circlings of sounding light, of fire and frost,
And all so quickly seen then quickly lost?
Or us, in fragile flesh, with God’s new eyes
That lift and comprehend and search the skies?
We watch the seasons drifting in the lunar tide
And know the years, remembering what’s died.
Oh, yes, perhaps some birds some nights
Have felt Orion rise and tuned their flights
And turned southward
Because star-charts were printed in their sweet genetic dreams—
Or so it seems.
But, see? But really see and know?
And, knowing, want to touch those fires,
To grow until the mighty brow of man Lamarckian-tall
Knocks earthquakes, striking moon,
Then Mars, then Saturn’s rings;
And, growing, hope to show
All other beasts just how
To fly with dreams instead of ancient wings.
So, think on this: we’re first! the only ones
Whom God has honored with his rise of suns.
For us as gifts Aldebaran, Centauri, homestead Mars.
Wake up, God says. Look there. Go fetch.
The stars. Oh, Lord, much thanks. The stars!
