Taken at the Flood
(There is a tide in the affairs of men,
which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
is bound in shallows and in miseries.
JULIUS CAESAR IV, iii, 217)
Market Street spills from St. Agnes' stones and gaping nave
into the square where her statue was to have been
then rises beyond frankincense- vanishing into hillside
forests of cedar and pine, into groves of wild iris silent as silk
This Sunday, while night spoons with dawn, and bells
do not yet yearn to take their toll, we climb the first slope
to where boulders turn stars to bronze sovereigns and frogs
are poets - their syllables - ( refuge for dew and the fragrance
dreams leave behind) - roll into the valley - tumble
beneath balconies and shuttered windows -
their syllables flicker in the gathering light - wind among
the dead - dislodge the dead from granite and sighs
their syllables fill Market Street's jagged cracks, make grasses quiver
until the bells drown them all with brooding vowels - until the bells
bring Sunday to her knees on St. Agnes' stones - strain to draw us
into St. Agnes' throat and bowels - into her bones - into her molten blood
We cling to reeds and boulders, to fallen stars and to each other
to the hum of poets hidden in saplings and honey daubed air
"Lean into their hum," I say. We spin ourselves up this
nameless path.
stir ourselves into morning's sweet lightning, vanish into cedar and pine,
into wild iris silent as silk
Carol Davis Koss 3/23/04