WINTER ' FOURTEEN
imitations). They would ride the gilded carriage but the horse has cantered: clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop:
goodbye old fiend of the woe-begotten century even as the clock majestic ticks away remaining time.
That unto us be this and such as yet may befall.
Fall of Adam our mark yet featureless creatures abide. Slow tide of the mothering sea. Old graces and
new worlds. So let me contradict myself even to the millionth part of the smallest decimal point: clip-clop,
clip-clop.
My subtle gestures as counter-command to the waves. I am young Angus again. See me ride the dolphins
of my desire. O sea see me!
A gesture and a subtle word. Chain-linkage of the mind.
My mind. No other to be mine. In the flesh sir, in the flesh. Incarnation and annunciations. Like a
figure wandering out of El Greco into a Breugel setting to wander back again.
A reply sir, a reply!
Mythos of an island. Sailors. Fisher-folk. The nets that I have cast against those nets that there be
transubstantiation! (forgive my exclamations). Land stories also. Hero with a crow on his shoulder or the
dying gaul with his sword beneath him (not under a stone).
Termination of the race. New race begun: tick-tock, tick-tock.
-I suppose you…
Thus begins their sly inquisitions in nineteenth century mode.
-…do not see it as irrefutable.
-Or perhaps you acknowledge but will not admit to it.
-Admit? Must I offer evidence?
-Of innocence or guilt?
-You are placing a terrible burden on him.
-Every admission carries its own weight and consequence.
-Consequence? How did we get from a supposition to a consequence?
-It’s the logic of inevitability.
-Logic won’t solve the matter for him, or for us.
-You have, I think, a religious state of mind.
-Don’t deny it – we all make illogical leaps.
-True, but from what into what?
-It’s the not knowing where you will land which gives every leap its validity. The history of science
proves that.
-But first you must have the meta before you have the physics
-More the stuff of poetry I would think.
-O damn the evasions of poetry. We need facts, solid facts.
Fact: I am in their company but am not of their kind.
Fact: the space between us is irrefutable.
Fact: I have the physics but seek the meta.
-Facts are conditioned by historical circumstances. Once the world was flat now it is round.
The Linnet's Wings