The Hero

Mortal and full of praise,

I watch the enchanted hero busy at his chores:

desert, tundra,

prairie restless

under an easy stride.

 

Dagger in belt, sword

slapping thigh, he passes

from sight, the restored land

sprung airily

to green praise.

 

    Arachnid webs entangle life.

    A busyness of thread

    weaves silk into night—

    the long shudder of moonlight,

    a transfixed eye shuddering.

 

    Nothing is so easy as death, I try to say.

 

    But the hard fact of glazed eyes, the boy turned to

        solitude, lies

    face up in the center of all webs, roads

    unwinding stubble.

                                     Whoever is alone

    walks brittle filaments, late

    stars smudged on dawn, a night sky’s frayed

    dawn.

              Dare we evaluate life:

    This hero’s gesture charms eternity?

 

Someone who paused here once on an ordinary day,

troubled by the impatience of his calling,

set up a hasty signpost:

“Toward…”

 

    Nothing is so scarred

    as this place, shards of parched

    cloth trampled by footprints coiling

    crazed centers.

                             Fresh with spring, light breezes play

    on dust.

                      A whisper of rain. Ropes of skeined thunder

       twist sky.