Stone Angels
Angels go - we Merely stray, image of A wandering deity, searching for Wells or for work. They scale Rungs of air, ascending And descending - we are a little Lower. The grass covers us
But statues, here, they stand, simple as Horizon. Statements Yes - but what they stand for Is long fallen
Angels of memory: they point To the death of time, not Themselves timeless, and without Recall. Their Strength is to stand Still, afterglow Of an old religion
One can imagine them Sentient - that is to say, we may Attribute to stone-hardness, one after the Other, our own five senses, until it spring To life and Breathe and sneeze and step Down among us
But in fact, they are The opposite of perception: we Bury our gaze in them. For all my Sympathy, I Suppose they see Nothing at all, eyeless to indicate Our calamity, breathless and graceful Above the ruins they inspire
I could close my eyes now and Evade, maybe, the blind Fear that their wings hold
The visible body expresses our Body as a whole, its Internal asymmetries, and also the broken Symmery we wander through
With practice I might Regard people and things - the field Around me - as blots: objects For fantasy, shadowy but Legible. All these Words have other meanings. A little Written may be far too Much to read
A while and a while and a while, after a While make something like forever
From ontological bric-a-brac, and Without knowing quite what they Mean, I select my Four ambassadors: my Double, my shadow, my shining Covering, my name
The graven names are not their Names, but ours
Expectation, endlessly Engraved, is a question To beg. Blemishes on exposed Surfaces - perpetual Corrosion - enliven features Fastened to the stone
Expecting nothing without Struggle, I come to expect nothing But struggle
The primal Adam, our Archetype - light at his back, heavy Substance below him - glanced Down into uncertain depths, fell in Love with and fell Into his own shadow...