The Second Coming

1865 –

1939

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This poem is in the public domain.

Magdalene: The Woman Taken in Adultery

Marie Howe

Teacher, they said to Jesus, The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say? —John 8:5

You know how it is when your speeding car spins on the ice at night

and you think here it is?

When the deer spring across the headlights?

When you begin to slip down the steep and icy steps?

Now imagine someone is about to push you, someone you know

and then they don’t.

Wade in the Water

Tracy K. Smith

1972 –

^{for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters}

One of the women greeted me.
I love you, she said. She didn’t
Know me, but I believed her,
And a terrible new ache
Rolled over in my chest,
Like in a room where the drapes
Have been swept back. I love you,
I love you, as she continued
Down the hall past other strangers,
Each feeling pierced suddenly
By pillars of heavy light.
I love you, throughout
The performance, in every
Handclap, every stomp.
I love you in the rusted iron
Chains someone was made
To drag until love let them be
Unclasped and left empty
In the center of the ring.
I love you in the water
Where they pretended to wade,
Singing that old blood-deep song
That dragged us to those banks
And cast us in. I love you,
The angles of it scraping at
Each throat, shouldering past
The swirling dust motes
In those beams of light
That whatever we now knew
We could let ourselves feel, knew
To climb. O Woods—O Dogs—
O Tree—O Gun—O Girl, run—
O Miraculous Many Gone—
O Lord—O Lord—O Lord—
Is this love the trouble you promised?

Three Words

Li-Young Lee

1957 –

God-My-Father gave me three words:
O-My-Love
O-My-God
Holy-Holy-Holy.

God-My-Mother’s wounds will never heal.

God-My-Brother is always alone in the library.

Meanwhile, I can’t remember

how many brothers I have.

God-My-Sister, combing the knots out of my hair,

says that’s because

so many brothers died before I learned to count,

and the ones who died after I acquired arithmetic

so exceeded the number of brothers still alive.

God-My-Father gave me three words to live by.

O-My-Love. O-My-God. Holy-Holy-Holy.

Why won’t God-My-Mother’s wounds heal?

Wounding myself doesn’t cauterize her wounds.

Another wound to her won’t seal her open blooms.

Her voice is a flowering tree struck by lightning.

It goes on greening and flowering,

but come petal-fall, its blossoms dropping

thunder so loud I must cover my ears to hear her.

Meanwhile, God-My-Brother spends every afternoon

alone with the books God-My-Father writes.

Some days he looks up

from a page, wearing the very face of horror.

Ask him what’s the matter

and he’ll stare into your eyes and whisper, “Murder!”

He’ll howl, “Murder!” He’ll scream, “Murder!”

Until he’s hoarse or exhausted.

Or until God-My-Sister sits him down,

combs and braids his hair,

and sorts his dreams.

I’m counting out loud all of my brothers’ names,

the living and the dead, on my fingers.

But the list is long,

leading back to the beginning

of the building of the first human cities,

and I keep losing my place and starting over.

Once, I remembered them all

except the first pair.

God-My-Sister says I must never say those names, never

pronounce the names of that first pair of brothers

within earshot of God-My-Brother.

God-My-Father gave me only three words.

How will I ever learn to talk like other people?

God-My-Mother sings, and her voice

comes like winter to break open the seeds.

God-My-Brother spends most of his time alone.

God-My-Sister is the only one

he’ll ever let touch his face.

God-My-Sister, you should see her.

I have so many brothers,

but forever there will be

only one of her, God-My-Sister.

God-My-Father says from those three words

he gave me, all other words descend, branching.

That still leaves me unfit

for conversation, like some deranged bird

you can’t tell is crying in grief or exultation,

all day long repeating,

“O, my God. O, my love. Holy, holy, holy.”

Eve, After

Danusha Laméris

Did she know
there was more to life
than lions licking the furred
ears of lambs,
fruit trees dropping
their fat bounty,
the years droning on
without argument?

Too much quiet
is never a good sign.
Isn’t there always
something itching
beneath the surface?

But what could she say?
The larder was full
and they were beautiful,
their bodies new
as the day they were made.

Each morning the same
flowers broke through
the rich soil, the birds sang,
again, in perfect pitch.

It was only at night,
when they lay together in the dark
that it was almost palpable—
the vague sadness, unnamed.

Foolishness, betrayal,
—call it what you will. What a relief
to feel the weight
fall into her palm. And after,
not to pretend anymore
that the terrible calm
was Paradise.