VICTORIA VI ET ARMIS
Wood spirit,
today I address you,
chains at my feet,
shackled hills,
veiled gray blue song,
dusty,
morning as complex as any letter
you wrote me,
tall,
like that circle of stones
you carry in your eyes,
about to rain,
wings
wetted down by sadness,
unborn life in your life,
darkness and seasons passing,
passing,
today I see you
lofty and worldly,
wicked from feast,
rouged lips and speaking those poems
found only in the high,
crumbling cliffs
by the sea,
rooted in minerals,
still thirsty from lashing storms,
everything that curls,
everything shrinking away from itself,
Two armies scan the coast of the sea,
far from the lunar veins you carry,
far from the lachrymal tombs
you have yet to heap,
one on top of another,
like crazy dice,
in the glorious thunder
of your passing memories.
I salute you Samaritan.
It is not far off from here
you were first born to suffer
and then to heal.
Those wounds which never show,
save the coffin of rosewood,
anointed with sandalwood,
white wept with summer,
strong from having to think so much.
Baby girl,
don't cry.
We won last night,
we just could not know it.
Now all these abstractions couple and uncouple,
now all these ghosts take to their flight like horsemen,
influenced,
no doubt,
by your smile,
and the way
you hold the sun in your hands,
lightly,
when you walk.
STANLEY GEMMELL
sep23, 1999