Fault

The Royal Armouries

20 The Royal Armouries September 20, 2001; Tower of London; Leeds Unhewn rock. The sling David holds Balanced with such grace in marbled hand— All history: the history of war— All over the world. Longbow. Sword. The queen has so many blades she’s divided them. It all happened earlier in China: their crossbow shot While we primitives sharpened sticks; their firelance While we were pouring hot oil from our ramparts. The history of war: the history of technology. The middle ages: one vast hallucination, Points kept honed and glinting for centuries. The Arabs wrote out recipes for gunpowder. Then, in 1850, our machine gun. Revolving rifle: 1855. You’ve noticed, haven’t you, how we speed up Time, so only now can we see clearly? The history of technology, the history of beauty, And therefore of loss. No more dragon’s-head hammers, Inlays of angels, unicorns, fantastic Wing-shouldered griffins contorting haft and barrel. Only clear sight. No more luck, Art and the uncertain human touch 21 To carry the aim astray—all give way First to the semi-automatic, Then to gas and wing, invisible fallout Defining its target so fully with its drift We call it accurate. We always thought Beauty might be fatal, its history History’s only end. Outside the museum Light nicks and glances off the river. In here, it catches blades arrayed As if they were forged to turn the sun for us. Someone imagined this hall. Placed the windows To bring us to the bearing edge of grief. River. Desert. The world moves us all Equally toward the moment we’re suspended To take our last plunge into winter. A matter now of keyboards, maps, and code. On the other side of the world, already tomorrow, A field blooming hard. Late poppies open (To their last good chance, to our sun) So deep in history we can’t imagine. Just there, our spear plants its chiseled head. ...