GATEKEEPERS
Sometimes, sometimes, and maybe always,
The doors can be so big
That they cannot be seen.
There is, they say, a wall
At the edge of the universe
So far away, so far away
That light from there has never reached here yet,
And never will.
It is neither winter nor Spring.
The year is a troubled child, roaring.
You know how I write:
I wait for words to come.
I do not send in dogs to flush out the birds of dawn.
I wait, to the souls of rivers and owls, to the world’s breath,
‘Til one by one, they come, gathering lightly,
Bright buds, whispers from the old roads.
And they may dissolve again.
They may dissipate, the offerings of time and waiting,
Just not enough to stay or settle.
The giants were called obstructors.
You might say, doorkeepers.
You might say, guardians.
Huge enough to carve out universes from their skulls,
Rich enough to give a thousand conflicting cosmologies.
It shall be storm all day today.
Waters bubbling down
From the cauldron of the hills.
Clouds dark and eloquent as Afagddu,
Dark as a cormorant preening on his pylon.
The layers of darkness arranged
For a perfect dive into silence.
The world has tipped.
Its weather spills out across the globe.
Excess and extravagance
Eating the hearts of the poor.
We await a new inoculation against greed.
But all our heroes of success
Only hasten destruction.
And so, I bow to the obstructions of giants:
The doorkeepers who block the way
And ask the riddle.
What skill do you possess
That you think would allow you to pass?
What quality, what virtue, to ensure
Any continued existence here?
What is the art that will not destroy?
What is the craft that we have never encountered?
What reasons can you make sound reasonable,
Sliding your guilt out of sight as if it were not yours.
Can you learn harmlessness?
Facing the storm you have raised
Can you abide at ease in the flickering light
Watching the helpless ones be swept away,
Swept away.
—
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