RESURRECTION

Gospel deep, your eyes
Were stations of the cross.
Though earnest and much inclined,
I stood unequal to your fervent poise;
Could hunger but not touch to
Bring that bright profanity
Of blood and earth,
The greater sabbath.

Gripped by certainties, you never knew
Agony among monsoon rocks,
The nervous, oblique shifting crabs.
I saw remnant beauty in broken shells,
Precise the eagle's soaring loneliness,
The sudden silver leaping shoals
That cracked the heart, pushing it inland,
Till the blood pumped softly, without memory.

So you dispersed along my nerves,
Unbespoken, gradually unfelt,
Unbeknown, but whole, there
In my secret knowledge. So
Across the years these eyes
Return, speak, modulate; without intent
Retrieve, affirm the caul,
This dream, this destination

Whose possessing sun informs
Our limbs' compelling rhyme.
Gigantic yearning prompts sap
And seed, begets a quiet
Raging peace, soft declensions, ceremonies
About your image at my finger-tips.
Evenings are restored and whisper
In soft pursuit of fading light,

As the stars declare their fires;
As the moon becomes a language.

Edwin Thumboo