meadow,
Rode over a hill.
And finally reached a hollow,
And by a forest path
Came upon animal footprints
And a watering place.
And deaf to any warning,
And heedless of his sense,
He led his steed down the bankside
To water him at the stream.
———
By the stream—a cave,
Before the cave—a ford.
What seemed like flaming brimstone
Lighted the cave mouth.
And from that crimson screen,
Which hid all from view,
A distant call resounded,
Coming through the pines.
Then straight across the gully
The startled rider sent
His horse stepping surely
Towards the summoning cry.
And what the rider saw there
Made him clutch his lance:
The head of a dragon,
A long tail all in scales.
Its maw was spewing fire,
Spattering light about,
In three rings round a maiden
Its twisting length was wound.
The body of the serpent,
Like a whip’s lash,
Swayed about, just grazing
The shoulder of the girl.
The custom of that country
Was to bestow the prize
Of a captive beauty
On the monster in the woods.
The local population
Had agreed to pay this tax
Each year to the serpent
In ransom for their huts.
The serpent wound and bound her
And tightened on her neck,
Having received this tribute
To torture as it liked.
With a plea the horseman
Looked to the lofty sky
And prepared for battle,
His lance set at the tilt.
———
Tightly shut eyelids.
Lofty heights. Clouds.
Waters. Fords. Rivers.
Years and centuries.
The rider, without helmet,
Knocked down in the fight,
The faithful steed tramples
The serpent with his hoof.
Steed and dragon body
There upon the sand.
The rider is unconscious,
And the maiden stunned.
The heavenly vault at noonday
Shines with a tender blue.
Who is she? A royal princess?
A daughter of the earth? A queen?
First in a flood of happiness
Her tears pour out in streams,
Then her soul is mastered
By sleep and oblivion.
He first feels health returning,
But then his veins go still,
For his strength is failing
From loss of so much blood.
Yet their hearts keep beating.
And now she, and now he
Tries to awaken fully,
And then falls back to sleep.
Tightly shut eyelids.
Lofty heights. Clouds.
Waters. Fords. Rivers.
Years and centuries.
14
This morning, faithful to its promise,
The early sun seeped through the room
In an oblique strip of saffron
From the curtains to the couch.
It covered with its burning ochre
The nearby woods, the village homes,
My bedstead and my still moist pillow,
The edge of wall behind the books.
Then I remembered the reason why
My pillowcase was slightly damp.
I had dreamed you were walking through the woods
One after another to see me off.
You walked in a crowd, singly, in pairs,
Then someone remembered that today
Was the sixth of August, old style,
The Transfiguration of Our Lord.
Ordinarily a flameless light
Issues on this day from Tabor,
And autumn, clear as a sign held up,
Rivets all gazes to itself.
And you walked through little, beggarly,
Naked, trembling alder scrub
To the spicy red woods of the graveyard
Burning like stamped gingerbread.
The sky superbly played the neighbor
To the hushed crowns of its trees,
And distances called to each other
In the drawn-out voices of the cocks.
Death, like a government surveyor,
Stood in the woods among the graves,
Scrutinizing my dead face,
So as to dig the right-sized hole.
You had the physical sensation
Of someone’s quiet voice beside you.
It was my old prophetic voice
Sounding, untouched by decay:
“Farewell, azure of Transfiguration,
Farewell, the Second Savior’s gold.
