On One Such Moonless Night

a poem

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i.

All wren-song breaks upon me like the spells
     enchantresses
will weave. Disguising beauty, rhyming veils
the tragedy of tales
     about brave men who sought to bless

the earth by strength of arms. By day, the song
     of curséd birds
illuminates a maiden, wearing a ring
one of the devil's throng 
     has coiled round her with untrue words. 

Night falls, and oceanic darkness paints
     the landscape black.
Above are sapphire, emerald, golden glints,
yet bone-deep blindness taints
     the view. One only sees his lack.

ii.

On one such moonless night, I raised my eyes
     to mark the coal-breathed beast 
whose head, resting upon a virgin's thighs,
obscured my sight 
     to virtues I'd once held but lost. 

Hovering in that dark celestial tent,
     the Dog Star loped
and shook and shed profusely light that sent
down flickering hues. As Advent's
     lights proclaim a king long-hoped-for,

the Dog Star's light described a crown of pine,
     holly, and citrus fruit
whose rind is solstice cold yet warms the one
who eats alone. 
     The pitch of night became a livid blue. 

The creature on the virgin's lap was bound,
     and with a stolen page
of Scripture, I descaled that snake, defined
a circle round
     its neck, and scribed the date this age

would end. Once pocketed, those scales like coins
     shifted and clinked
with every step. I fled to enjoy my gains, 
but I could not. The wrens
     sang bitter songs; all I still lacked

stretched before me in tritone intervals,
     a melody
that I could not resolve with serpent scales;
beyond the ocean's hills,
     beyond the sun, eternity.

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