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Dave Bonta
Shrink an arrow
bend it back upon itself
strip it of feathers
give it a lead sinker & a cork
& a small steel eye
to aid its introspection
let the quarry do
all the travelling
drawn by flash or flicker
lure or wriggling bait
let it exhaust itself against
this irrevocable stillness
In a quiver lies
what hits the eyes
the target struck
an arrow stuck
it can release
with greatest ease
but it will not
it likes this spot
When Loneliness stalked ...
Black panther through gold wheat-fields ...
You used Love’s arrows.
Will you glimmer on the sea?
will you fling your spear-head
on the shore?
what note shall we pitch?
we have a song,
on the bank we share our arrows;
the loosed string tells our note:
O flight,
bring her swiftly to our song.
she is great,
we measure her by the pine trees.
The stone falls, the bird flies, the arrow goes home,
But we have no motion, we scatter like foam.
O, give me a song to sing for your sorrow,
A song that will lift, like a wave from the reef,
You and myself, that will fling like an arrow
My poor scattered words to the target of grief:
I want to forget, to remember no morrow,
To go with the petrel, to go with the leaf. . . .
We would fly with all things to the goal of their flying,
We would turn with all things to the magnetic star,
But we never can live, because of our dying,
And we never can be, for the things that we are.
We alone of all creatures — the stones more than we —
Have no end, no motion, no destiny.
Hate in the world's hand
Can carve and set its seal
Like the strong blast of sand
Which cuts into steel.
I have seen how the finger of hate
Can mar and mold
Faces burned passionate
And frozen cold.
Sorrowful faces worn
As stone with rain,
Faces writhing with scorn
And sullen with pain.
But you have a proud face
Which the world cannot harm,
You have turned the pain to a grace
And the scorn to a charm.