Esprit De L’Escalier

L’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier…
 
A sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again [when he reaches] the bottom of the stairs…
 
(Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien)
 
Reaching the defeated drawbridge,
We turn and look back into the armies
That rejoice now in our low-hanging heads.
 
Weapons which then eluded us
Stand stall and proud, declaring if only:
If we’d been wiser, if more prepared,
 
If and how much more had we, if we’d done
And not done this; said not those words but fought
With these instead; said this battle-cry not that –
 
All the wisdom that comes afterwards,
The defeated soldier’s last flash of pride.
The wit that dangles, moments too late, in thin air;
 
And watch – it all recedes before us:
How quickly the moat fills up the distance!
How hesitant and weak our battle-cry sounds,
 
Floating over the divides of time and water,
Echoing into closed, pointless battlements,
Resounding with laughter upon pride-taunting stairs…
 
The monsters from the moat now take up their cry,
Baying for blood, screaming for your pride; this
Is your only option – fall on your battlescarred knees,
 
Rip off your chainmail, tear off your helmet;
Faceless and humble, remount the stairs;
You’ve silenced the monsters – you fed them your pride.
 
The battle is over and pride has not won;
Climb up the staircase and sing this defeat,
The song of the humble who have no need for wit.

His Name is John (For the Nativity of John the Baptist)

The name was not a family name.
But no-one in your family has
That name! they said, as he wrote down,
Faithful now at very last,
Just what the angel said to him.
And true – it was an unusual name;
Yet as he scratched upon the page,
“His name is John”, he felt a loosening
Of his tongue, as though it had been
Untied from cunning, tight-strung ropes,
And from his mouth poured forth the praise
That was well-known to Elkanah
And Hannah, Sarah, Abraham,
Whose ranks Elizabeth and he
Had that day blessedly joined:
New life borne from a barren womb,
An angel’s sigh, a laugh, a drunken
Show of prayer transformed! And yet,
Amidst the joyful throng, a tightening
Formed within his throat, for he
Knew the way these things would go:
That Abram had to raise a knife;
That Eli took what was Hannah’s;
And even as Sarah’s laugh echoed,
Samson shaved and Herod dined;
For this too had the angel said:
That once he knew the right from wrong,
This child would know too that his birth,
This miracle, had given birth
To a life that was not his own,
His name a testimony to
A graciousness that bore a cost,
A life lived out among the weeds
And desert thorns and loquat trees,
A voice crying, Prepare the way,
Who made the way, prepared the fruit,
Yet bowed before the feet of one
Whose sandals he could not untie;
And, in his miracle of life,
Walked the way to death.

“…and here shall your proud waves be stopped” (Part Three)

III.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
(Mark 4:41)
And in the wildly shaking boat,
The waves full in their tempest fury,
The Lord asleep there in the boat,
Calmly sleeping, fearless, sleeping
While all about him roared the waves;
Waking then he stood and turned
Upon the waves, rebuked them, said,
Peace! Be still!, his voice a wall, as if to say,
Here are your doors, waves. Go no further.
And they looked on Him and thought,
Who is He, then, this man among us,
That winds and seas should bow to Him?

“…and here shall your proud waves be stopped” (Fourth Sunday After Pentecost)

I.
Exegi monumentum aere perennius.
I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze.
(Horace, Odes, Book III)
Out from the camp – the Philistine camp –
came the champion, the fearful champion,
height six cubits and a span,
armed in mail, helmed with bronze,
in a coat of bronze and on
his legs two greaves of bronze, and then
between his shoulders slung a javelin,
a javelin also of bronze.
Who will dare fight me? he cried,
Am I not a Philistine?
Are you not servants of Saul?
Let me see who will fight me.
All the army there fell silent;
yet in the crowd, the fearful crowd,
stood a boy, a shepherd boy,
young and ruddy, young and small, who
went up to the king and said,
to the King of Israel, said,
Let no hearts fail here today.
Your servant will fight this Philistine.
Saul, the King, tall and proud,
looked in scorn upon the boy.
You are a child, he said, and this man
has been a warrior from his youth.
But David stood, the shepherd boy
stood firm and said, The Lord who saved me
from the lion’s paws and bears,
He will save me here today.
And so he stood, stood firm and heard
Goliath throw his taunts at him.
Am I dog, he called, that you
should come at me with sticks?
You come to me, said David, with
sword and spear; I come in the
name of God the Lord of hosts whom
you have defiled here today.
He took his slingshot then in hand
and, armed with five smooth stones, he slung
the first stone at the giant and
watched him fall down to the ground…

The Shortest Day

Somewhere amidst the day the sun disappeared,
Emitting no longer the rays it was expected to
As clouds and pervasive grey cloaked the day,
Slowly squeezing us into packets of clothes,
Only noses emerging for sharp gusts of air.
Next to the moon’s dark side or an eclipse this was,
At least for now, the closest we’d come to total blackout.
Lethargic balls of stunted motion, we moved on,
 
About our days, huddled in holes where the warmth made up
For the complete lack of light, the survival instinct driving us
Further and further from open windows. In corners we sat,
Each in his own cavern of self-protection, enveloped in
Clothes – the most layers we had on hand – shells and cells
To keep off the force of the cold, scarves wrapped like
Igloos and coats rising tent-like around our neck’s battlements,
Vital signs somewhere palpitating under layers of ice, just
Enough blood pulsing beneath in channels not yet frozen.
 
Did we even see the sun that day?
If we did, the night-time of 4pm made us forget,
Swarthy strokes of black paint across the horizon
Of the day’s dull canvas. Driving home, the road
Ran ocean-current-like through the twilight zone of sky,
Darting cars like anxious eels cut through the waves,
Every streetlight a beacon and our spirits gasping divers
Rising, as the day died, for quick gulps of latent light.

Alban Yields

(Tomorrow is actually the day in which the Anglican Church remembers St. Alban, Britain’s first martyr. I have written his poem today, however, knowing I will not have time for it tomorrow.)

Alban Yields
Albanum egregium fæcunda Britannia profert.
Fruitful Britain holy Alban yields.
(Venantius Fortunatus, quoted by Bede, trans. William Hurst)
The stream flowed smoothly the day he died;
Bede says it parted at his approach
And made the way for him to pass
Through and climb a nearby hill,
A pleasant place flecked with flowers,
And flat and still, like the calm sea.
And for that time, within the calm,
The soldier, there to take his life,
Saw something in his sturdy step,
His willingness to give his life,
That made him bow and yield with him.
The stream resumed its natural course,
Making way for Alban’s death.
And yet the soldier who had bowed
Would not regress into the flow.
And so they both that day gave up
Their lives into the stream’s swift flow.
The Roman tide was still against them;
(It was not hard that day to find
Another ready, willing soldier.)
And yet the stream had shown that day
That One controlled the tides who would
Crown Alban and let him one day
Wash in and drink the streams of life.

The Quaking Earth: A Villanelle

When the quakes and winds rage, do not fret.
Our homes and towns are safe and stable.
Be strong, my dear; we’re not destroyed yet.
 
The gate is locked, there is no threat.
The baby’s safe within its cradle;
When the quakes and winds rage, do not fret.
 
It will pass and we’ll have fun, I bet!
Dance and sing while you are able…
Be strong, my dear; we’re not destroyed yet.
 
The storm is as strong as it will get;
(The Bureau just sent me a promising cable.)
When the quakes and winds rage, do not fret.
 
We are insured, we’re safe, we’re set.
(They say the situation is stable.)
Be strong, my dear; we’re not destroyed yet.
 
These aren’t the worst times we have met;
We can still run, we are still able.
When the quakes and winds rage, do not fret.
Be strong, my dear; we’re not destroyed yet.

Marginalia

(Written on the only scrap of paper I had available at the time)

i.
the spaces in the margins serve
as ample ground for flowers to bloom
from words sewn wildly beyond beds
and left to bloom in discarded soil
 
ii.
pensive pens make busy work
for fingers in distracted moods,
the sunlight on the window pane
an arrow for the wandering mind
 
iii.
these margin notes that smudge the page
burst and clamour to be heard;
though small they bolster with the lines
that consume the page’s free space
 
iv.
but i will give these margins to
the One Above who sees and owns
all pages and all flowers, who
crowns the lowly, lowers the proud
 
 v.
who makes rich seas from autumn leaves,
who scans the limbs of the sycamore tree,
He who takes words small and weak:
He will make these margins grand

The Hot-Air Balloon

Departing or perhaps arriving,
In the park it stands and waits,
 
Hot air blasting its insides,
Bursting full with expectation.
 
Just too late to catch my train,
I sit and watch from my platform,
 
The monarch of all I survey,
And yet confined, like it, to ground.
 
Proud in its bluff, full of hope
Yet going nowhere, it sits still,
 
The jumbo king exiled from clouds,
The Dumbo of the inner-west.
 
It sits and slumps, too early in
The week to be exhausted yet
 
Its air slowly departing and
Its grand puff on a sideways tilt,
 
Then down! No air remains and so,
Like a king’s dismantled battle tent,
 
It droops and its courtiers stand at its sides
To fold its grand promises up,
 
Its trumpets and its bugles mute,
Triumphal march today deferred.
 
The dewy ground receives its king,
All pomp removed by circumstance,
 
While I, deflated by the scene,
Must look elsewhere for my flight.