Phaedrus Throws Stones

“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.” —Rainer Maria Rilke

In China, I busied myself with Tang Dynasty poems

writing no words to you in English for six months.

Now leaves in their death-brilliance blow cold against the door.

I hear you calling from the sky—the face of God—you with your clouds

carved in granite, volcano bursts in suspension over Praetorian eyes.

I am digging my toes in the last green grass before spring, thankful

for another chance to try and find what Phaedrus searched for in all

his travels—something about pleasure in the journey, not the destination.

You take steps which seek the dust shaken from the sandals of the apostles

while I read about the drunken state Li Bai sought before writing

his elegant bambooed verse. I can see him in his boat cursing at the moon

whose cycle refuses to turn the tide or fit itself neatly into dynastic poetry.

Of course you know how fickle a woman the moon is, her orb a granite breast

reclined across the sky. If you would listen to Phaedrus, you would hear

the word of his testimony bleeding like stones draped in moonlight.

I think of Stephen, the first martyr, who cried out crimson as stones

laid down prostrate before the sky, whose gentle kiss raised him to paradise.