XVI  THE TOWER (2 poems)

The Tower — The Disintegration

“…the bells break down their tower,
and swing I know not where.””
        - Hart Crane, “The Broken Tower”

Nightly I blaze & fall –
I fling my bricks
into the void,
& like an echo
they return.
Mornings,
I am whole again.

I am the clock
striking thirteen,
I am the shadow
that precedes the sun;
the proud charioteer
never glimpses me.

But children come to me
with their games & questions,
they bring frogs
for my pond.
I turn poisonous mushrooms
into the desserts of the sun;
I drink the milk
of dandelions.

Indestructible,
I die & grow.
On the hillside
I am the grass-stalk
that refused
to accept its limitations.


The Tower II —The Inner Fire

As the wheel turns we fall
As the tower splits its seams we fall
        fall
        but learn to fly

I
Lightning strikes
& the tower crumbles--
bricks slice through
an atmosphere heavy with sparks
& flames gnaw
at turrets of weathered stone,

but like a bud
an inner fire
shoots up from the tower's depths:
the tower's salamander
defending his territory.

It is like the counter-fire
set by despairing settlers
when the prairie on all sides
was swallowed in advancing flame.
Fueled by the edge
of pasture land, this fire
would rush to meet the monstrous one
until they both were quenched.

II
The blinding light
of the Grail castle's towers
offered the invisible cup
to an unseeing world.
The questing knights of the barren land
countered it with blazing eyes
until the Grail appeared & brought
blossoms to dying fruit trees.

Thus the breaking tower opens
its rooms to the stars
as light finally reaches
the lowest inner stair--
        like the primeval light
       of that ancient sunrise
       when the debris of earth's long formation
       had finally dispersed from the air
       & the eager sun
       touched earth's frothy oceans
       & created life,
       & after millions
       of such dawns
       this curious life
       tried to reach the life-giving sun
       & one sunrise
       crawled to land.

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