Day 3

Adam's Song

The adulteress stoned to death
is killed in our own time
by whispers, by the breath
that films her flesh with slime.

The first was Eve,
who horned God for the serpent,
for Adam's sake - which makes
everyone guilty or Eve innocent.

Nothing has changed,
for men still sing the song that Adam sang
against the world he lost to vipers,

the song to Eve
against his own damnation;
he sang it in the evening of the world

with the lights coming on in the eyes
of panthers in the peaceable kingdom
and his death coming out of the trees,

he sings it, frightened
of the jealousy of God and at the price
of his own death

The song ascends to God, who wipes his eyes:

"Heart, you are in my heart as the bird rises,
heart, you are in my heart while the sun sleeps,
heart, you lie still in me as the dew is,
you weep within me, as the rain weeps."

- Derek Walcott


- - -

Catastrophes

A presence is punctuated
On either end
With absences:
There was not

Nor was there
Any
Intention towards until
Suddenly

Like the crystal blue
Of a tidal wave rising
From the crystal blue
Of a sea to meet

What one now sees
More aptly as
The crystal

blue sky;
Sea and its wave
More like sapphire.

- tony