And now, not night, not day.
Something ignited just here,
under the eyelids, stays chilled.
Chill in the marrow of the chest,
legs, arms, the forehead.
And the heart - bird - at rest . . .
a man, not man, not beast,
gesturing above
all that is earth and clumsy
above even a steeple
a shadow, visiting the surface
like a moth, a name you would find
in the good book a man
not man, not beast like
a creature with dusty wings,
a moth of a man
a bat of a man
who can never hear this world
or smell it circling him,
or touch it as it reaches
through the air trembling
to touch to trace
such contours the terrible
shadow of his path pointing
without hand speaking without tongue.
You remembered me, oh Lord,
and sent me an angel whose face
stings me, whose sad heart
hangs its shadow, like the scroll
of a terrible book, upon the branches
of my belief.