Oh the sun is warm and the soft winds ride
on the willow trees by the riverside
And the world is sweet and the world is wide
and she’s there where the light and the darkness divide
and the steam’s coming off her, she’s huge and she’s shy
and she steps on the moon when she paws at the sky
And she comes to his hand but she’s not really tame
She longs to be lost and he longs for the same
And she’ll bolt and she’ll plunge through the first open pass
to roll and to feed in the sweet mountain grass
Or she’ll make a break for the high plateau
where there’s nothing above and there’s nothing below
And it’s time for their burden, it’s time for the whip
Will she walk through the flame, can he shoot from the hip
So he binds himself to the galloping mare
and she binds herself to the rider there
and there is no space but there’s left and right
and there is no time but there’s day and night
And he leans on her neck and he whispers low
Whither thou goest I will go
And they turn as one and they head for the plain
no need for the whip, no need for the rein
Now the clasp of this union, who fastens it tight
who snaps it asunder the very next night?
Some say the rider, some say the mare
some say love’s like the smoke, beyond all repair
But my darling says, Leonard, just let it go by,
that old silhouette on the great Western sky
So I pick out a tune and they move right along
and they’re gone like the smoke, they’re gone like this song
BOOK OF MERCY
I STOPPED TO LISTEN
I stopped to listen, but he did not come. I began again with a sense of loss. As this sense deepened I heard him again. I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, and I allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance. This was a strategy, and didn’t work at all. Much time, years were wasted in such a minor mode. I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love. I beg for mercy. Slowly he yields. Haltingly he moves toward his throne. Reluctantly the angels grant to one another permission to sing. In a transition so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high, and no higher.
WHEN I LEFT THE KING
When I left the king began to rehearse what I would say to the world: long rehearsals full of revisions, imaginary applause, humiliations, edicts of revenge. I grew swollen as I conspired with my ambition, I struggled, I expanded, and when the term was up, I gave birth to an ape. After some small inevitable misunderstanding, the ape turned on me. Limping, stumbling, I fled back to the swept courtyards of the king. “Where is your ape?” the king demanded. “Bring me your ape.” The work is slow. The ape is old. He clowns behind his bars, imitating our hands in the dream. He winks at my official sense of urgency. What king? he wants to know. What courtyard? What highway?
I HEARD MY SOUL SINGING
I heard my soul singing behind a leaf, plucked the leaf, but then I heard it singing behind a veil. I tore the veil, but then I heard it singing behind a wall. I broke the wall, and I heard my soul singing against me. I built up the wall, mended the curtain, but I could not put back the leaf. I held it in my hand and I heard my soul singing mightily against me. This is what it’s like to study without a friend.
SIT DOWN, MASTER
Sit down, master, on this rude chair of praises, and rule my nervous heart with your great decrees of freedom. Out of time you have taken me to do my daily task. Out of mist and dust you have fashioned me to know the numberless worlds between the crown and the kingdom. In utter defeat I came to you and you received me with a sweetness I had not dared to remember. Tonight I come to you again, soiled by strategies and trapped in the loneliness of my tiny domain. Establish your law in this walled place. Let nine men come to lift me into their prayer so that I may whisper with them: Blessed be the name of the glory of the kingdom forever and forever.
IN THE EYES OF MEN
In the eyes of men he falls, and in his own eyes too. He falls from his high place, he trips on his achievement. He falls to you, he falls to know you. It is sad, they say. See his disgrace, say the ones at his heel. But he falls radiantly toward the light to which he falls. They cannot see who lifts him as he falls, or how his falling changes, and he himself bewildered till his heart cries out to bless the one who holds him in his falling. And in his fall he hears his heart cry out, his heart explains why he is falling, why he had to fall, and he gives over to the fall. Blessed are you, clasp of the falling. He falls into the sky, he falls into the light, none can hurt him as he falls. Blessed are you, shield of the falling. Wrapped in his fall, concealed within his fall, he finds the place, he is gathered in. While his hair streams back and his clothes tear in the wind, he is held up, comforted, he enters into the place of his fall. Blessed are you, embrace of the falling, foundation of the light, master of the human accident.
BLESSED ARE YOU
Blessed are you who has given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you. You are the truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may be
