The Ghent Review Volume1, Number 1, summer 2016 | Page 61

Nowness of my heel’s clatter. Irrefutable stones, sunlight on which can be
dazzling. Yet with a clear eye to see it in its fullness.
Yet I have also abandoned.
And will do so again.
Soil I am not wedded to, a history not mine to kneel before. Saying again
what I have said before because it is delicious to have such words in my
mouth for utterance.
And what is the bell which is ringing its tone I pay no allegiance to the
undertones of?
No matter, no echo. Day is day, bell is bell, I am what I am and are where I
am. Not now to the dark and dank wood will I return. In my poverty is my
liberty – empty pockets, but see what coins I carry as my currency. I will
give alms to the beggars of time (come gather at the table of the beneficent
one – I the most generous). Turn your umbrellas upside-down for a shower
of coins. Gather about me, gather about me!
But they scatter. Afraid. Wax in their ears they will not remove. So be it unto
them in this world. As if out of alien ground the hoards were singing songs
of war but not songs of defiance.
O Fortuna that this should be my time and place.
O Fortune evermore in my song (will there be singing? Yes, there will be
singing.)
Hosannas for the new entrance. Laurel not palm. About me in the glittering
(I will give new answers to the old numbered questions spoken, and
answered, by rote). For mine is the arrogant pride of a maker: so be it so in
the world; word, tone and undertone, semblance and shadow (how real now
these shadows as I cross them and how insubstantial as I cross out of them
and leave them behind me).
Will there be a gathering?