Wednesday, October 5
MORE THAN PEACE AND CYPRESSES
More than peace and cypresses, emboldened
hares at the field’s edge,
Father, I love
gallantry, tenacity, the sanguine
heart before the ledge:
the artist questing and failing—
the feet of bested Icarus
plunging into the sea’s crest—
the artist triumphing: a page of fire
from the book of heroes.
More than light-hooved gazelles, views
from the mizzenmast,
enlivening shores,
more than soldier-still lilies, I love
the torchlike men who’ve taught me—
past the rueful
glitter of lucre and guns,
past the starkness of the lynching tree—
the truth-or-bust beauty
of passion transformed
into sheer compassion,
true shouldering,
and common as breath, common as breath,
the extravagant wheel of birth and death. (Cyrus Cassells)