Of That Knowing Born from What We Do Miss

 

“O absence makes the heart grow fonder,”
wrote Thomas Haynes Bayly in his song,
Isle of Beauty—and the state that stalks
the lonely strikes as an act of psychopomp,

who leads away and far off—
instead of letting us dally and abide;
oh, isn’t then the state of absence
a way of sending its own captive off,

just as the state of being seems—
to give itself away, to fold? Till a word
brushes another word, and the word

becomes a name, and the name—
a Muse’s shade, a falling silhouette
caught—and fastened to its ray.

Νᾱός, Temple, Is a Place of Return, Repair, and Restoration

 

Czech návštěva—visit;
and návrat—return.

 

Surely and strangely, I was drawn
to those ruins of old Pisidian Selge,
riding the crest of its remote mountain,
and there above all to what is left
of a little temple that turned out

to have been a monumental tomb—
a naiskos, a heroon, on a raised podium
on a ridge-ringed green meadow
in the northern acropolis,
outside the once-invincible city walls,

a place to which local village goats
seem pulled just as strongly,
amid scattered olive trees and oaks,
from where you can see higher still
the massifs of the robust Taurus;

as if the flanks of the beast ever
remained tightly gripped
by that Phoenician princess
they called Europa—
indubitably a euphemism

for a goddess and an ancient
nether rite and dauntless passage
between the world mortals
see as common and the other,
altogether different—

And from the tomb and temple
in the middle of the confined valley
hardly more than its foundation
and the bases of well-carved walls
have endured—withstanding the ages:

νᾱός and νόστος for the soul of the dead,
a place of homecoming, a locus of return,
for the immortal that touched on death,
a holy of holies for a divergent paradox.
Just as that naiskos—“a little shrine” and grave—

now without a roof, open widely to the sky,
is a living house—for a “little god”
who escaped us beyond the lids of time.
But if a god, how could she ever be
that little—divine and yet belittled?

And isn’t between immortal and mortal
always a crag, a gap, a wedge, a split,
however waxing now or waning then?
And yet—many paths and bridges,
we trust, come and go—both ways.

Just as νέομαι, its verb behind,
speaks of momentous turning,
of coming or going back,
and therefore of an act
of saving restoration.

As at those perplexing rendezvous
when two meet and suddenly enliven
what had concealed itself
far behind the eyes,
where hearts dwell unseen.

And likewise too
it can be with soul and love—
once two such “little gods”
return to one another
what the other missed.

Chorus of the Wall-Stones of Selge

Chorus of the Wall-Stones of Selge

We, the stones of Selge temples, were cut
to face inward—
to see and to guard
whoever comes in.

But when people lost their faith
in the abodes of the sacred,
they, newly unanchored,
also unanchored us—

and set us as convenient sentinels
into the gaps of outer walls
they learned to trust
instead of the inner flames
meant to be ever kept alive,

which they then did not bother to repair—
for it was the chill of the new interior darkness
they believed would make all less painful.

And so they turned the world inside out,
leaving the center ruined and hollowed,
and so, step by step,
the once marbled and polished spirit
became broken spolia, silt, and mud—
for the outer cannot hold
all by itself alone.

And even now—as we lie
scattered and cracked—
today’s young women and girls
of Selge, now called Altınkaya,
are not allowed to go to the hills,
to roam the ruins and forests—
they must stay by their homes—

unlike young men and boys
who bring animals to graze
in the orchestra of the Selge theater,
and who are not feared
to stop and tap
into us
and unmute wisdom
from its pristine ancient source.

O subtle and fine
is the geometry of our waiting,
holding its timelessness
on the final edge of breath,

as even now, in devoted silence,
we press our memories
back
into their speaking shape.

 

The Nameless Temple Speaks

Not raised for a name,
even if a name
is like a trail—
both living and dead
can still travel it,
can still meet,

or touch the base—
between the ends—

or, like some lovers’ silence,
struck by a pronounced word,
granting us other eyes
with sight—

before lips recall a prayer
that shifts the weight
into the arms of one another’s wings,

so the soul may grow its face
and move—to dance—
strings of a strumming spine.

For what can a temple be
without its own tongue
and living flame—

without the adjourned return
and the entry through its quietude,
which, at last, grows old?

Then how could anyone forget
when beauty makes
such approach—

even with a tap
rising from below
your near sole?

So we learn
from mountains
that salvation
is such encounter—

and how to listen,
how to wait,
even through mist,
and to the farthest distance:

O you do remember—

I am
this same place.

Chorus of Goats in the Theater of Selge

We are the goats,

lovers of snow-capped mountains,

and though our syllables are spare

and many of you

take our station for low—

 

we grind our shaggy backs

in Selge’s ancient theater,

against the stone seats of the upper rows,

against each other,

and in the gaps between.

 

And we can pass

still salty scraps of lines

with which Euripides once made

good old—hence goat-like—

gods and goddesses speak

in fluent Greek.

 

So what does it matter

if dirt—or ignorance

of your present world—

clings to our coats?

 

We have one over you,

and it is not a question of size.

Even your Devil’s image,

even the Templars’ Baphomet,

you stole from us—

without knowing why.

 

Any of your women

could have told you—

they still know

how to judge

the point and weight

that give footing

when spanning

a giddy chasm

or a vertiginous crag,

when the legs go up.

 

Thus we keep these ruins

and cannot help but laugh

when your priests

speak of chastity and love

while drowning

in what Freud named das Es,

so he would not have to

call a spade a spade,

nor sink—too conscious—

deeper than the prophets

who lived here before.

 

We do not mind

if you—or they—

try to outrun

your anima or shade.

 

They cool us all the same.

We know something

of ancient caprid kinship:

hoof, horn, and even nail.

 

And if at times

we are naughty

or ill-mannered,

it is because we were born

to supply what is missing—

your manners,

your polished deceits.

 

And so if a god appears,

just let him—

he—or she?—

will find us ready!

 

And we, in turn,

will not cut him—

nor quarrel

with a pronoun,

 

nor ask for a feckless slack.

“How Do You Know We Live in Barbarian Times?”

 

Nimble wrists and arching brows,
trained to make time pause—
and think thoughts yet unthought—
where did they go? Or,

to be more exact:
into whom could they pass?

For what is truly learned
is not what is merely known,
but what is long
and well practiced—

yet practiced so
that nothing is rehearsed
until the letter kills
what once moved.

Instead, we have a bland,
ironed triteness—
a routine, deadening Eden,
full of hearts

lost not to innocence,
but to needs sans measure.

Little Elegy of Long-Lost Art—Refined Enchantment

With nimble wrists, well trained
till stillness itself turned fluid,

they used to swirl
the feather-and-frill of a fan
like a wand of mute music—

its silk hummingbird wings
now opening, now closing,
now landing, now lifting

breeze, calm, or passion
from a seashore gale—

presaged in gestures’
artful alphabet,
cast—soft spell—
into ivory silk of hands.