R.L. Cook
ON WHOM THE SHADOW FALLS
He's robed in sun; his hours are grains of sand
Roaring through a glass that cannot be
Reversed; and every bell's the toll of noon
And midnight in the belfry of his brain.
Wearing the quick consumptive glory of
The doomed, he feels the worm's cold kiss
Or fishes' touch; a monster in each room
He enters, squats behind the door and waits.
His face is fever-bright; he moves outside the stale
Orbit of common peace: no one can tell
The secret rosary that presses on his throat
Or tune in to the clanging in his mind.
A paradox, he takes an evening stroll,
But, as he pauses by the trellis gate,
The bells begin like babel round his head
And taloned harmonies peal from the night.
For him alone the music of the darkness
And, in the empty pauses when his thoughts
Erode the unreality, pale voices
Chatter in a tongue that none but he
Can understand who tastes both life and death,
With butterflies of panic in his soul:
Time takes him up, clothed in a desperate brightness,
On whom the margins of the shadow fall.
STATEMENT
Not before your knuckles are red with the blood of the monster
Will you acquire the poise of completed endeavour;
Not until your lungs are torn with the dangerous climbing
Will the mountain fall behind you, the road descending
Below to sauntering rivers and fat grasses
Never lie clear until the jagged vastness
Is pushed aside by your own hands; your feet
Will throb with calluses until the heat
And dust have been endured—and not before
The puzzling facade has been stripped to leave the core—
The ice in the heart of flame, the mind's quiet centre—
Will you see heaven shining, hear a voice say: "Enter".
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