Holy Heathen Rhapsody Read Online Free PDF

trench of the mole,
    in the wintering eggs of the luminous beetle
    and the ragged reachings of all roots scraggly
    and crooked with the network of their knitted
    inroads, who is the Deep in unseen subterranean
    rivers, the Porous of limestone, sandstone,
    and gravel through which groundwater seeps
    to purity downward, the Sunless in buried aquifers,
    and the overpowering Weakness in the single cell
    enormities surmounting there, who is the Source
    and Savior of the eyeless eel and the eyeless
    pseudoscorpion and is the Blindness of the eyeless
    eel and the eyeless pseudoscorpion, and the rigid
    Seriousness of ancient cave chambers, echoing
    caverns, and catacombs, damp stone spires
    and walls of granite organs, the Light of calcite
    pinnacles which, after touched by sudden light
    in their lasting darkness, emit light themselves,
    dimly, briefly, who is the seething core Intensity
    of molten metals, the center Clench of solid
    iron/nickel fury, who is the complete Circumference,
    each and every inner Radius of orbital earth,
    hallowed and empirical, who is the Story
    and is the Telling and is the Silence beyond
    forever. Amen.

SIGNIFYING (COMING TO EARTH)
    Rain comes in its minions, streaming
    down into ravines and rimples, running
    over and under bedrock and boulders,
    down the slopes of gulleys, sopping
    mossy dells and frond-filled valleys.
    And snow, without blizzard, colorless
    with silence, floats to earth, gathering
    across plains and lowland forests, covering
    the smallest flat pads of weathered
    mushrooms, filling the upturned hulls
    of spent pods—yucca, locust, pea, mimosa.
    All of these seek the earth.
    Spiders drop too, sometimes sailing
    in hatchling clusters, gliding through
    a still day on streamers or blown
    sideways over fallow fields until
    the wind ceases and they settle
    in the bristled grasses and mayweeds.
    Whispy seeds of ash and maple aim
    for it, each balanced with the wind on double
    paper wings. Every direction points
    finally toward earth. Acorns, walnuts,
    hickories split away, plummet hard,
    knocking through tangled twigs
    and branches to get here.
    And geese zero in, whiffling and skidding
    feet first to a lake-slide landing, skimming
    in praising sprays of water. Watch.
    The earth is so desired. Coming
    as close to it as possible, consumed by it,
    white toads and blind fish adore the deep
    of its internal damp, foregoing color for it,
    relinquishing sight. The inert seek it too,
    bone splinters, fleshy crumbs, nasty orts
    and roughages sink through sea currents
    all the way down to its bottom sunless bed.
    The heavenly—angels, arch-angels—
    deliberately descend, perching and hovering.
    Their choruses sound then like broken chords
    of wind strumming through pinyon pines,
    like the dodecahedron ring of icy chimes
    hanging in crystals from winter eaves.
    With all the vast freedom and void
    of the universe to select from, frigid evil
    comes too, seeking warmth in the belly
    of the lover, power in the birthright of the sea,
    spring light in the pulse of the prairie.
    The earth is so desired. How its rock
    and river body is loved, its dune and hillock,
    its night and day demeanor. Even the dead—gone,
    buried, and forgotten—take its name forever.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    With thanks for the tenacious and devoted work of the editors of the following journals in which the poems listed were first published, and thanks to the editors of all such journals and magazines that provide venues for the publication of poetry.
    American Scientist
: “Holy Heathen Rhapsody”
    ARTline
: “Blue Heavens”
    Ecotone
: “Co-evolution: Seduction”; “Summer’s Company (Multiple Universes)”
    Field
: “Scarlatti Sonata Testament”
    Georgia Review
: “At Work”; “Night and the Creation of Geography”; “Yearning Ways”
    Image
: “Hail, Spirit”; “Speak, Rain”
    The Iowa Review
: “Edging Dusk,
Ars Poetica
”;