The Moon and the Yew Tree
This is the
light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees
of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses
unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling
my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply
cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is
no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags
the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on
Sunday, the bells startle the sky ----
Eight great
tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end,
they soberly bong out their names.
The yew
tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes
lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is
my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue
garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would
like to believe in tenderness ----
The face of
the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
I have
fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and
mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the
church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on
their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands
and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon
sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the
message of the yew tree is blackness -- blackness and silence