A Poem in "Second Sight"

 

A Vision of the Peak of Ben More

           (glimpsed from St Andrews)

Upon the ruin of that broken cone

Where an elide notion may pause and linger

And float a riddle there, sidelong

That broad ocean plain of running colors

Channeled in rivulets of wavering form

As cool and flowing as the inconstant sky

Ah, some trick of time, that three-side darkness

A form too geometric, could this be

The repercussion of mere erosion,

Broken stone condensed from sacristan fumes?

But there it stands, a portal nonetheless:

A scree triangle breaks wide to worlds ulterior,

A diadem glimmer of crag-hung moods

Drawn in the wake of swift sensation.

In that triangle gapes a deep

Knotted passage that sounds low

In tones unheard but full as chorus

Memory down through darkness plunging

To sway periodic, to swing and sweep,

Now decrescendo, now diminuendo

A pendulum moved by odd alignments,

Insight again, and sacred laugh,

The vision lights, the astral flights

That pleat against the spheres, then see

Susceptible henchmen run forth

To seize the heavens as they fall

Thus though dead as ordained life,

All that’s born wakes to crawl

Pushed between thighs of sleep

In visions bred or borrowed

Or fed upon Promethean liver, we

Grow as maps of blood vessels, webs

Of radiance condensed upon calcified bands

And on the opposite coast at the foot

Of St Rule’s Ruins, high church canticles

Casting tentacles like shore lights and sea glare

Beneath partial clouds and shrieking gulls—

Fagin rooks castle on crow’s step gables.

While alone the tale of empty cliffs

Where the martyrs’ marks in brick are set

Here on this spot the pole-stake was driven

The mad fire raised high, pacing smoke

Carried away the prayers and the cries

And what else but now only

Silent sorrow condescends a clue,

And reason with a furrowed brow

Takes a seat and repeats oblique

Syllogisms that speak of

Rebirth—the rune that spells

Return to the tale’s essentials….

Yet curtains will fall on this scene of passage

And bursting with dull elementals

Who turn out again and again, and reiterate

The cast of heaven eternal,

A troop beyond the millions

Like flint points condensed through thunder

From vapors that scud through a vision,

A horde of thoughts, a host of glimmers

To pinion the clouds that opinion round

A scree triangle against the azure.

"A Vision of the Peak of Ben More" is among my poems appearing in the first volume of Emanations.