sw00139p-poem1s1

Postures 2007: #1 from Side One           



"Ode to Evening"


Fair provider of my deepest hours;
  Of day the last and ever saddest part,
    Who when the knolls are warm and winds curve high
  And martins show their wondrous ancient art
Will complement each meadow's sleepy blooms
By washing their young eyes with pastel showers
    Of light, accept this ode of praise which I
Allow my spirit here to feel--as grooms
  Accept their brides--accept: with open heart.

For though you move with grumbles and are gray,
  Now as my thoughts are pressured through this pen,
    And foster melancholic musings more
  And more in me, my will to think of when
Your mood is less like that which Judas knew
Compels from memory another day
    And, as the virgin waters seek their shore,
Delights to words--through which I form my due--
  A sea of dreams to bolster scores of men.

How restlessly that sea rides in!  How like
  A child's clear face that time remembered glows!
    O fair provider, gift I would not lose,
More purple than the grape, more lavender
Than summer's woodland violet!  The shrike
    Which bleeds its prey on thorns would rather choose
To look upon that prey than on that stir
    Of brilliance I recall, and heaven knows.

From north to south it flanked the failing sun
  And caused a hill's dead barn to seem on fire,
    And hinted blood as seeped on Calvary,
  And raised together: happiness and ire.
From south to north unthought magnificence--
And I with eyes that see and legs that run.
    What better state, what better hour for me!
But for the hour of songs and frankincense
  Or that best hour when men to God aspire.

Full-patterned eve, from white to black outspread,
  Sometimes in softest snow arrayed, sometimes
    Again in hail, tornados, or sleet jeweled,
Our present world has certain need of you.
Your being keeps us conscious of our dead,
    And sets before us questions (when we are fooled).
And so, though we be weak or we be few,
  We shall prevail, and you/ bear our rhymes.





  -------
Brian A. J. Salchert