Excerpt from WHEELS

OUR COLOSSAL FATHER, AGAIN

Sob, heavy world,
Sob as you spin.
W.H. Auden

1
The portrait painter’s art works like faith that turns
the wafer, the decanter of wine into something else.
A dragon swaggers through the portal
of our century striding into a gothic sky.

2
In another country, olive groves
and gleaming mosques are pulverized to dust.
Outside the white courtyards, bloody streets
fade after sudden explosions.

3
He is a throwback to grand lawgivers
who stretched their arms over the world.
We will remember him for his Augustine self-denial,
the last beer he drank, and his mealy-mouthed sermons.

4
His prophets pour oil that rises
in flood across the marbled floor.
Better a good name than costly oil
the day of death than the day of birth.
In the faint light of dusk he seems
to be walking on water.