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The Lord in the Air
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
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Colors needles gasping for air jack-hammering My right haunch burned by the hundreds Ofholes, as the snake shone on me complete escaping Forever surviving crushing going home To the bowels ofthe living, His master, and the new prince ofpeace. The Lord in theAir ... Ifthe spectator could ... make a friend & companion ofone ofthese Images ofwonder then would he meet the Lord in the air & be happy. -Blake Shook down shook up on these trees they have come From moment to this moment floating on in and this Moment changes now not with the light for my son Has come has come out with one crow floating Offa limb back on and off offa limb in other Sunlight turning and making him call himself Blacker then settles back back into the other Moment. They hunch and face in. 0 yes they are all in These very trees ofthe son-faced and fencedin backyard waiting for my boy and the Lord In the air. 0 parents great things can be released From your left-handed son's left hand! They don't know It, but he has them all in his palm, and now puts them All in his mouth. Out by the blue swoon ofthe pool He lifts the wood whistle to his blond lips. A scratchlong sound rises out ofhim the trees flap and fall Back, and ah there are crows dealt out all over inside The light they mix and mingle dive swerve throughout Themselves calling self-shuffling saying With my boy's other tongue sailing meeting the Lord Oftheir stolen voice in the air and more incoming from miles Away are here they wheel in blast after blast In the child's lungs, as he speaks to them in the only Word they understand the one the syllable that means The Lord in the Air / 325 Everything to them he has them cold: their several Accents they cry with him they know more than all They have known fear griefgood danger love and marriage With the Lord in the air. The pool trembles my boy falls From his voice falls in stitches to the concrete one More word he says not intended never heard he gives Them a tone never struck in the egg in the million years Oftheir voice the whole sky laughs with crows they creak And croak with hilarity black winged belly-laughs they tell Each other the great joke offlight sound living Deep in the sun and waiting a sound more or less or more Like warning, like marriage. 0 Chris come in, drop offnow Black birds from your tongue ofwood, back into our neighbor Trees into other dimensions, their added-to moment and light Plays over the pool in lovely silence like new surely like new Power over birds and beasts: something that has come in From all over come out but not for betrayal, or to call Up death or desire, but only to give give what was never. Pine successive apprehensions I Low-cloudly it whistles, changing heads On you. How hard to hold and shape head-round. So any hard hold Now loses; form breathes near. Close to forest-form By ear, so landscape is eyelessly Sighing through needle-eyes. 0 drawn off The deep end, step right up And be where. It could be a net Spreading field: mid-whistling crossed with an edge and a life Guarding sound. Overhead assign the bright and dark Heels distance-running from all overdrawing the only sound Ofthis sound sound ofa life-mass Drawn in long lines in the air unbroken brother-saving Sound merely soft The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy / 326 ...