Hot Weather in Tucson

Glimpsed askance through leaves, the sky 
looks lapis and ivory; 
confronted, blinds and is blinded by 
the sun’s incandescence. 
Through the thick shadow of a mulberry 
a white-wing dove may flute a cool blue call 
continuo; and Christ, 
white-robed as priest, 
direct a blue gaze from the print on the wall. 
But, to face the Father’s or Jehovah’s embodied essence,
must I prepare my own eyes 
for longer than I know 
and further than surprise 
can go? 
Have I to arrive beyond surprise or wonder, 
simply to accept Sinai, lightning and thunder, 
and the intense 
presence 
of the Gods’ incorporate power and light? 
Joseph was not surprised: he saw his sight.

In the thin shadow of the tamarisk and 
mesquite, the cicadas draw 
a relentless buzz-saw. 
I dare not plant my bare sole on the sand. 
I have my free agency; 
but I can act only on things as they are, 
freedom being interpretable as willing obedience 
to—rather than mere recognition of—necessity, 
like radiance 
from the ineluctable path of a star. 
Hence, it may be, Their 
exceeding light 
that I cannot yet bear, 
though it has driven out “Chaos and old night.” 

Meanwhile, the white-wing dove may call 
in fluted blue from the mulberry; 
seen through the leaves, the sky look ivory 
and lapis-lazuli; 
and Christ stand in snow and azure on the wall. 
I am grateful for the diversity by limitation 
—through the sense, the plain sense— 
of incarnation; 
and hope for deliverance 
into a still more gifted body of flesh and bone, 
yes, like that of the Father and of the Son. 

July, 1969.