The Golden Floor
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- The Golden Floor
The golden floor, incised with old designsOf dryad and thunderbolt,Where a newly created god reclinesSuddenly liftsAnd tilts to one side with an unnerving jolt.
The elder Everlastings have thronged to its rimAnd are staring down at menBelow, staring through the scrimOf centuriesOr the lifetimes a single second may comprehend,
Down at the miniscule figures in leather and steel,Armies of insects thrownTogether so that warriors concealThe bodies beneath.In the bonded phalanx each man died alone.
The new young god had been a river onceCrossed by rival kings.The plash of slopping hooves still bluntsHis readinessTo listen for the screams of mortal things.
The scene is smeared with cloud but he can seeAmong the rubbled deadA man howling on his knees,Coughing upGouts of blood, his trembling arms outspread [End Page 161]
As if to beg the heavens to turn and fightFor his beleaguered city.Soon his soul will sink into a scalding lightAnd disappear.But the young new god has neither interest nor pity. [End Page 162]
J. D. MCCLATCHY has written eight books of poetry, most recently Plundered Hearts: New and Selected Poems (Knopf, 2014), four collections of prose, including Sweet Theft: A Poet's Commonplace Book (Counterpoint, 2016), and edited dozens of books. He has also written seventeen libretti performed at opera houses around the world. He teaches at Yale, where he serves as editor of The Yale Review.
