FERETRIUS

 

And so I have

that hook

on which

to hang the whole.

That first nail

in the temple wall.

 

Yet how can I sing

and, singing, capture

the lightning’s edge,

the boiling clouds,

the horse-eyed passage

of clattering hooves

that thunder

on the mountain heads?

 

For each inception

is yours, and you

the secret furled

in the ox’s

steaming breath,

the scrape of fate

in the plough’s hunger,

tearing

at the crusted soil.

 

Beneath the torpid rumour,

the slow, slow beat

of vultures' wings,

there is an oak

within whose boughs

the futures hang

glinting bronze,

dark amongst the leaves.

 

You are there.

 

********

 

   Vale!

   Caius Moravius Brutus