Easter Poem
Feb. 8th, 2005 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloOn Being Asked For An Easter Poem
The body once dead is- within four minutes I think- so much unusable carbon and water.
I don't like to think of that body on its ledge degrading.
I wouldn't have turned up three days later like Mary Magdalen.
I'd have been thinking- eugh gross!
So that miracle doesn't fly for me. I cannot feel it here
(thumps chest.)
I cannot think that anyone met Christ in a garden after his death.
I believe in ghosts but that's another matter.
In a churchyard in Kent there was a gravestone with a carving of the Noli Me Tangere.
It was dead clumsy.
Mary had huge hands and Christ, mistaken for the gardener, was leaning on a spade.
Last time I paid it a visit Mary's face had sheared off.
Loose knit stone, Easily carved, easily un-carved. Rub it with your thumb and you get a smear of Ordovician mud on the skin.
Nothing comes back as it once was. Nothing. That's the economy of Terra. There are only so many atoms whizzing around and they are continually being reconfigured. Nothing is lost but everything is remade. And the new thing is not the old thing come back. Does it remember what it once was? Does it hell!
Never before
Never again.
That's the song the midges sing, twirling under the overhang. How long do they last- minutes?
The body drops into dust and the dust is good for something- I don't know what.
It makes the weeds in the garden grow.
Yes, why not!
It makes the weeds in the garden grow.
The body once dead is- within four minutes I think- so much unusable carbon and water.
I don't like to think of that body on its ledge degrading.
I wouldn't have turned up three days later like Mary Magdalen.
I'd have been thinking- eugh gross!
So that miracle doesn't fly for me. I cannot feel it here
(thumps chest.)
I cannot think that anyone met Christ in a garden after his death.
I believe in ghosts but that's another matter.
In a churchyard in Kent there was a gravestone with a carving of the Noli Me Tangere.
It was dead clumsy.
Mary had huge hands and Christ, mistaken for the gardener, was leaning on a spade.
Last time I paid it a visit Mary's face had sheared off.
Loose knit stone, Easily carved, easily un-carved. Rub it with your thumb and you get a smear of Ordovician mud on the skin.
Nothing comes back as it once was. Nothing. That's the economy of Terra. There are only so many atoms whizzing around and they are continually being reconfigured. Nothing is lost but everything is remade. And the new thing is not the old thing come back. Does it remember what it once was? Does it hell!
Never before
Never again.
That's the song the midges sing, twirling under the overhang. How long do they last- minutes?
The body drops into dust and the dust is good for something- I don't know what.
It makes the weeds in the garden grow.
Yes, why not!
It makes the weeds in the garden grow.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 07:48 am (UTC)I tried to write something more upbeat, but this is what came through...
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 08:08 am (UTC)You can't force a poem.
You have to let it dictate itself.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 08:07 am (UTC)That is why I love your poetry.
And you always surprise me with a sudden image.
I'll be thinking about midges twirling all day.
And:
Quoth the raven: Nevermore.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 08:10 am (UTC)They manage to spin in formation, making a kind of egg shape in the air that distorts but never breaks.
How do they do it?