AQUATELOS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty ... - Cornell University

3. MY MABON
the coil-sign, lituus swelling its decisive iris
marks the dolmen where time redacts
the psalter of sprig pulse, calligraphy of capillary
actions, straight and crooked as genealogies
profusion of scribbled leaves lunging from bindings
sweet green hands waving help from each tunnel
each spine tapping the black undertree of this flesh
this compress of filth sealed on a heart called earth
its venereal zeal, its willing passivities, multiplying
declivities where spores scuttle, contagion drips
but innermost the welter inverts, marks a new round
in contradiction, in a bubble-chamber in soil’s ocean
space within a place, tomb upturned to crib
where the shape of our coming scores the quiet
with finite, incandescent sounds:
Mabon, eat the dark
and that subtler dark we name the light
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