1

through a profuse splendor
astride hard night,
I sank my naked hands
into the heart
of an ancient oblivion;
I let it beat,
        let it echo in me,
the caged wings
of a thousand years.

forget what was spoken
today; no joy wider
than the sea. I reach
across oceans and islets
diving the black depths
so I can come up,
conches and abalone
bursting, 
into the light.

I bear holy waters
and deep, deep truths.

forget stone expanses,

        regal insignia,
        invisible yardsticks,
        the perforated rocks

climb upon the upright
isosceles,
the supine scalene,
ride down the razor
straight edge,
the penitent and bloody
hypotenuse.

2

        Arched in red
steel, the stone wings
of the condor pound
in flight upon
my feverish temples
my white-hot forehead,
a furious feathered broom
sweeping coal dust
where I am climbing up.
I cannot see the
bird
        I cannot avoid
the sawing of its claws

3

all around are
once human slaves, exhausted
in the fields
before unfinished labor.
        One dead,
thousands moldering,
another dying;

women in widow’s weeds
by the thousands
black against the black
night, the black rain.

we all pass through
carved stone arches,
these names inscribed:

the stone-breaker — the creator’s son
the cold-eater — son of the green star
the shoeless one — grandson of the turquoise;

born again with me, my brothers!