The star went before them
Till it came and stood
Over where the young child was.
Lo
He is risen.
Peace
Be unto you.

"One winter night
a star came
and hung for awhile
in the old tree
like a burning leaf..."

"The long shadow rests...
And bleeds awhile,
To rise again."

      [Paraphrased from a Scots ballad]

It was to be
That in the rotted rooms
Of an old tree
A starlit orchid blooms.

I was not aware of the Mysteries
Until I was aware
That the Mysteries were aware of us
     And loved us
     And hated us.

From the breathing iridescence
Of our shell of mist and stone;
From the wound of His flesh
The incandescence of a pearl;
Source and shadow;
The long rays
Shedding Light
Shedding shade.
Is our source
Mere reflection?

I was here;
Remembering and remembered
As in a living mirror that receives and perceives,
Gets and gives.
Two eyes staring, at two eyes staring
So that all past and all future is spoken at a glance
And the seeing and the seen become one,
A pool peering.
The first day glitters in the mirrors of antique memories
Into the long shadow cast quivering in iridescent light
Reflected and reflecting, and is
The light of distant stars, spent,
Or the fitful presence
Of phosphorous bugs.
The small impeccable ray
Is the most holy sun.
It could not be
That I was here.
I was here alway.
I am here
Now.

In the precise shadow
Of emerging day
The Earth in labor lay
And along each vein surged the pain
That shuddered the rock away.

The sun rose.
Into the rays of the crown
A running man came in fright.
The strewn stone lay like mangled bones,
The wounded flesh was lathed by the long light.

The man stopped
On the torn lip,
Saw the white linen writhe:
The coils of the winding sheet unwound
And as a bandage binds the eternal wound.

Reaching,
An ancient two-handed Arm
Breathes;
Holding and Held in the dark Earth
The downward probe in delicate balance,
Precise,
For the upward reach of the febrile fingers
That sieve the deliverer wind; the destroyer wind.
And the leaves like tears run down the hollow cheek
Of bare December
To fall in regular rows
And line the seminal grave,
      Reaching.

Upon the City of the Dead
And on the City of the Living
The Snow falls;

And the rows of squat stones
Point higher
Than the probing blind thorns,
That crown the shocked horizon
Where the sky descends to meet
The Earth.
The falling flakes are souls returning
Giving life, to the City of the Living
And the City of the Dead.

In the grave and sombre yard
There are no shafts soaring
A Hundred and forty stories
And no shuttles elevating bodies
Either express or local;
But there,
Souls may ascend to Heaven
Not to scrape the sky,
But to partake of it.

On the heaving, sighing sands
(coming and going
Yet never leaving
Ever here
Trackless as a blind stare)
There are three prints
Unsmothered by sand
     - or year.
What the wind covers
The wind uncovers.

Where yesterday never was,
and tomorrow is today
In the blind and unlit world,
The summer fly gropes,
and asks, what is love?
The shadows
close my eyes and sigh
No answer.

From the sepulchre, a miraculous light.
Pass it on! From hand to hand!
And the blind hand will see,
And the dead eye will quicken
in continuous light.
This is love.

Sudden flight like a shot shaft:
Phoenix trailed a mounting cloud,
Formed the promise of a cross
Moonlit in a sky of jet.
The wind dissolved it slowly,
Slowly dismissed the swirling shroud.

As crystals
The tumultuous clouds stood still
Lit by a star standing at a place
For never had become forever
Drew their cloaks as shrouds
Seeing

And foreseeing
The savage comings
The happy goings
That from Time to Time
Is Being.

"On the same day
There is light and dark;
Dark the thorny star
Sharp with Light"

Where the rocky lip of the cave
Flowed into the sea,
The sea threw up a great plinth,
And the Star's light shown there.

Fast as birds
Staunch as rocks
Goeth The Three
To where air and sea
Embrace, to where the stony sea
Is beached by the flowing rock,
By the shore where stone and water meet;

Devoured and devouring,
Sea and stone wore and built
Within the starlit shore,
By the shore where stone and water meet.

Three ships came
Following the Star
To where the Rock stood
Resisting the hungry sea.

In those days
The Bishop-General was joined
One winter night, after The War,
By King Phillip and five hundred Knights
To pay homage to the Star.
Courage was honored among men
In those days.