Light

The crow's caw yields at last to cock's crow
whose bluster at the wakening of the world
blots out the black bird and its banshee squall.
The dawn's red army on the hills scatters
and crawls; he breaks his baby film on peaks,
his yokeblood trickles down the stony slopes.

But night will never loosen its grip: it holds
the fire-god in contempt, that fat-cheeked idol,
that ruddy Buddha-bellied sky-king rising
to put his sopped thumb under the witch-kettle,
spill entrails and deride the shepherd's book,
forgo the butchered ox, invent the clock.

He has his gold throne on the sky's ceiling,
slays mythic horses in their circuit, throttles
the mad bolt-thrower and the four-faced blowhard.
All mornings mark the death of alchemy,
of trick and ritual; out of star-pricked gloom
they blaze up, killing shades in sudden fire.

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