The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets - The Poet's Press

AFTER THE STORM
THINGS SEEN IN GRAVEYARDS
Dead night. I tramp the midnight lane
of yews and mausoleums.
The air resounds with muffled cries:
a cat? a wailing ghost?
a child abandoned, exposed
to gusts and rain and fatal chill?
I think of Roman fathers
exposing their infants on hilltops —
or, far more likely in this
ignoble time, a furtive birth
dumped from the back of a passing car.
My eye expands into the moonless dark.
I brush against the rain-filled leaves,
push through the hedge
until I find the source:
on a mound where six markers
neatly grew,
a tree had crashed upon an infant’s grave.
Sleep, sorry ghost,
from your Indian awakening!
Was it not here the Iroquois
made secret pledges to moon and stars?
Did they not tell of jumbled boneyards
where felling trees brought back
the dead —
not whole, but with the jaws and tails
of animals, were-things with fangs
and claws and antlers, hoofed hands
and legs attached at useless angles?
Hence their horror of disturbing bones!
Something ascends before me, a blur
between the graveyard and the pines:
I see the outspread wings of an owl,
the twisted arc of its talons,
but it regards me with a human face,
a tiny death-head in a feather shroud,
withered and wise and ravenous
for the mother milk of the skies.
46
HART ISLAND
Ferry cuts fog
in Long Island Sound,
baleful horn bellowing
a midnight run
unblessed by harbor lights,
unknown to the sleeping millions
convicts at the rails,
guards behind them,
dour-faced captain at the helm
a face and a pipe
and a dead-ahead glare,
an empty gaze that asks no questions
offers no advice
A careful mooring,
cables thicker than hanging noose
bind ship to pier;
pilings like pagan columns
bind pier to Hart Island
Convicts shuffle to the end of the dock,
guards behind them with billy clubs
hands tensed at holster.
You fellas better behave now,
the captain mutters,
just do what you’re told.
And no funny business,
another voice warns,
‘cause anything could happen to you here.
The prisoners shiver at moonless
expanse
of blackened water,
dead shell of Bronx one way,
bedrooms of Queens the other;
clap their hands, blow on their fingers
to fight the chill.
Guess you would freeze one speculates
before you could get to shore.
Just do what you’re told,
the biggest con admonishes.