from Bach in Autumn

I

The Jews this evening, under the lindens, near the ramparts, taking careNot to exceed the Sabbath mile, are promenading their black hats.Brothers of Elijah and Nabaoth, peace be with you!Last of the ancient days, Saturday stretches out in the distancing sun.It's the day when the earth, even beneath October's harrow, recallsThat it once bore in its womb soaked with funereal sweetness                The Body of the Son of Man.

In the church, women sluice down the tiles. LaterThey will go home to sweep in front of their doorsteps and will fill with oil                The lamp of the seventh day.We are born to bear time, not to elude it,Like a day-laborer who only leaves the vineyard at nightfall.But on the threshold of the last night of our week, it is sweet to hear                Sunday moving across the horizon.

Only the walnut tree is still ripening its late fruit, like our brains.The wind that scatters its hoard of leaves in the grass and on the waters                Will soon open that still-veiled space to us.At the windows of their outworn nests, a hubbub of swallows                Cry out toward their other country. Welcome,Dusk of our day, Saturday of our life, open-handed season!                Lord, I am content.

II

Once I knew days spent walking, the elms numbered toward evening                From milestone to milestone beneath a chromatic sun;At night the inn where liver dumplings and pork were steaming.Then, on my free days I would walk all the way to Hamburg to hear that old                Handel has gone off in a post-chaiseTo amuse the king of Hanover; Scarlatti wanders through Spanish feast-days.                They are happy.

But what use are the organ's pedals, if not                To mark the indispensable way?On this wooden path, worn like a staircase, daily, whetherUnder the Easter trumpets or the paired Christmas oboes,                Under the rainbow of heaven's and human voicesFrom milestone to milestone repeating my earthly voyage, I followed                The bass line's fundamental progression.

Above the horizontal road that merchants take, not without risk,                To bargain in the shops of KracówFor wigs, perfumes, pelts from the stalls of Novgorod,A lark soars alone in the holy vertical.                Before the wingspread soul in its sun's wakeCan spring forth beyond the tomb, the rules, the law,                This earth must be learned the hard way.

III

Slow, sliced by silences, progressing in shivers, the Catalan sarabandeMoves through night's interstices. As it flings up orHollows out its spirals, it hoists itself to Aldebaran's flames or dives to the depthsOf the arteries' panting branches across the reunited lovers.Their eyes closed on their tuned hearts' whinnying, they hearTheir dark blood as it shudders toward death in bright star splashes.                The flesh is necessary.

Harsh Luther told his thoughts on this. Jacob desired RachelTwo times seven years. A man, to perpetuate his strengthAnd the long impatience of his lineage, entrusts them to this companion, earth'sAccomplice, and like earth, knowing, sly, inhabited by tireless waters,Imbued with acids that outlast us. Nothing survives alone. In its incalculableDetours, Rachel's body prepares our species' Easter.                Not everything is reasonable.

I know night's attraction. The tautest scale will findAn irresistible slope plunging to those crimson vibrations.Perhaps desire is only a disguise for the soul's nostalgia,Afraid of the dark? At the foot of the ladder of dream,Pushing the angel away, closing his eyes, Jacob sprawls onHis loins, moaning, clasps true earth, true death. Betelgeuse too at its zenith                Shivers in the depths of the well.

Like the Prodigal Son, the one most faithful to the home of his youth,As it takes its part in the laboring world, perhaps the soul wishesTo be reborn blindfolded, far from day, and grope its way backAlong the path toward birthlight. The hour will come when the FatherOpens the doors of gravity...