EMPYRUS (A Tiara)

EMPYRUS (A Tiara)

Heals and hurts Wyatt said

of the fire. Though it does

neither in this Empyrus, place of

fire; all of us, where a moving thing

has got where it was going. Still. Until it

gets there, he meant; uncertain

medicine, San Cyprian. Good here

evil there, the alchemist in her oven.

The alchemist in her oven, in her hands

the slowly forming stone. Love’s messy.

I work at the thought of you with these

my best mistakes. A hasty catafalque

come looking for its body, death itself is delivered

us by the hands of death. The body arrives like 

the other side of anything, that turns out to be both sides.

The work is done. Wings wash themselves in the flame.

Wings wash themselves in the flame

as Donne says, in the slackness where illness gets in

but there is no illness no field lies fallow

look under the ground bold Templars worship still

cardiovascular linguists lazy fire in their wet hands

it’s obvious if you watch the movement of the crows

as they land precisely here on this winter field, so you know

this will be important for you later.

This will be important for you later

so we continue to remember this temple

the mountains the sky; we run around the bases

and already I’ve forgotten that science

I minded before they took my cup

while a new quartzite Ozymandias

rises from the mud in a Cairo slum, I can almost

remember, your eyes rising over the hill.

Your eyes rising over the hill

the human food of bliss trudging slowly

up the steep grade my feet affirm

in the only dark I know clear through

to yours the wind striking the tones of the house

like a methodist haunted by shakuhatchi flutes

I said I was no one but then the train came

our holy fabrication, both heals and hurts.