Easter, 2006

— Yes, I know the Lord.

His frame is scored
onefold, and his members
are syntactic.

His tongue remembers
always the movements of his two hands,
recto and verso, with which he commands
his chirhopractic.

For me those bones of his spine
exist in perpetual holography,
green entoptic phosphenes, a true vine
of the—

—and there are letters
also, arranged as a fixed lattice
of elements, a crystallography
of constants, and by constants
I mean words, which must refuse
to speak falsely or surrender to inconstants,
not a comma to make all terrene refuse
—Spirit and water and blood—into one.


And on this day did that spine of words rise up from the tomb,
coming with vivid faces, bestowing life, changed utterly. He spoke
not, but virid phrases issued from his mouth—that opulent room
sprung on twin columns—a pillar of fire, and a pillar of smoke.

They dare to give his day to pagans, to Ishtar, even to the dawn
personified as she. We put our altars eastward with the rest;
but dawn to us was always He, who alters all that into him are born.


His Word, to me, is a crystallography of vows
and consonance. With his verbs he dowses and endows
me with life; with his nouns he doses and induces me to rest.