The last poem I want to read is a companion
to that one, and some ways and it's
the first of a series of poems which
have got their own developing form, which I won't
go into a description now, but it's one version of it at least
will be quite apparent in the poem.
And all of these poems have got some variant of that form.
I think nothing more needed, but they're all called "Psalms."
This is the first psalm, and it's called "Our Fathers.'
I am the son of joy, but does he know me?
I am the son of hope but he ascends into heaven.
I am a son of peace but I was put out to nurse.
I am a son of grief after the brother was lost,
but I have opened an eye in the life where it was he who lived.
I am the son of a shadow and I draw my blinds out of respect,
but I cleave uneasily to the light.
I am the son of love but where is my home
and where the black baptismal cup and the frightened
eyes that would still come to the names I gave them.
I am a son of the tribe of Apher, which set up empty tents
and camped where it could defend them
and was remembered for them, but I
have discovered that the unknowable needs no defense.
I am a son of the temptations of the rocks,
but there have been some between.
I am a son of fear, but I find out for myself.
I am a son of the first fish who climbed a shore,
but the news has not yet reached my bowels.
I'm a son of three flowers--
the pink, the rose, and the other or its effigy and skin
for neither of which was I thought a name
and I shudder at their withering all free,
but they will survive me.
I am a son of the future, but she shows me
only her mourning veil.
I am a son of the future but my own father.
I am the son of the future, but where
is my home and the black baptismal cup
and the warning voice from the bushes under the kitchen
window saying that they were not my parents.
I am a son of a glass tombstone and a freshly plowed field,
whose furrows sit in rows studying
the inscriptions of dew, the sole name, life, tears
as the sun rises, but there are no more voices on that river.
I am a son of the water thief who
got away and founded a barefaced dynasty,
but the fountains are still following.
I'm a son of a plaster bone in the oldest
reconstruction in Millennial Hall, but all my age is a one.
I am a son of a cymbal of Bethel that
answered like a cracked bowl to the instruments of ivory,
of bone, iron, wood, brass, hair, gold, gut, glass.
Through all the generations of the sacred orchestra
maimed voice before the throne was
waiting as it was for its like to be found,
its twin, its other face, son, socket,
identical disk, the very metal, the other half, itself,
its cymbal so that it could sound its own true note,
but only one had been made.
I am a son of an unsuspected wealth,
but I may labor all my life and leave nothing
but a grain of mustard seed.
I'm a son of thanksgiving, but its language
is strange in my mouth.
I am a son of the glove of an upper river
and the glove of a tree, but there were four rivers all
told around the garden and I tasted of salt
from the beginning.
I am a son of the fourth son in the right hand jars
and the second row of the seventh shelf above the glass
footwalk on the fifth floor in the ninth day of the 83rd room
of the T18 wing of the heart division of the St Luke's
Memorial index, but he died in a strange land before I was born.
I'm a son of Cargarran, who was an ant in the time
of the noseless emperors and was accorded
great emulation, an urn of amber and a flag
to fly his picture on, for he fought with the plague of crane
seeds until darkness came to his rescue,
but I have used to be frightened if I wake, if I remember,
if a tax is mentioned or it is Thursday.
I'm a son of seven promises the last of them
to live to see it again, but the womb
may not have been listening.
I'm a son of the words "still" after the angels
came to the door in her barren age,
but on that same day she lost her memory
and she gave birth without understanding.
I'm a son of a drunken rape at a veterans'
convention in a brutal empire bandaged
with the arguments of empires, but hallowed be thy name.
I am a son of the starvation of the Utes,
the tortures and gassing of the Jews,
the interrogation of suspects, the burning of villages,
the throat of the antelope, the amputations
of the domesticated, the cries of the extinct
and I plead ignorance, ignorance but it would be no better
to be an orphan.
I am a son of the ark that was carried empty
before the tribes in the wilderness,
but I walk because the times have changed
and there is no one behind.
I am a son of a statue of Hamalid the Great, the Weight
of God that was renamed Vengeance in a different tongue
and that with raised knife still shouts its incomprehensible
syllable to the dark square with one foot
on the illegible date of death, had no apparent sex any longer,
but it was modeled on a jailer's dead wife.
I'm a son of four elements-- fire, darkness, salt,
and vertigo but I dance as though they were strangers.
I am the son of the cloud Cynian that
appeared as a torn white breast above Herod
and was not recognized, but I acknowledge
its vatic suffering are still visible in the bruised haze
of the ridges.
I am of the blood of the ash shrew whose remains have not
been found, but whose characteristics have been
deduced from my teeth, my mistakes, the atrophied
at the heart of each of my fingerprints,
and the size of the door at the base of the skull
where now the performers under each with his eye
fixed on the waiting instrument.
I am a son of the bird fire that has no eyes,
but sings to itself after waiting alone and silent
in the alien wood.
I am the son of fear, but it means I am never lost.
I am a son of terrible labors, but triumph
comes to the flags that have done nothing.
I am a son of pain--
time nurses me.
I am a son of nobody, but when I go the islands turn black.
I am the son of the first Sabbath,
but after me cometh the eighth day.
I am a son of hunger, hunger and hunger in an unbroken line
back to the mouths of the coelenterates
but even I have been filled.
I am a son of remorse in the vein of fossils,
but I might not have been.
I am a son of division, but the nails, the wires, the hasps,
the bolts, the locks, the traps, the wrappings
that hold me together are part of the inheritance.
I am a son of indifference, but neglect is a stage
in the life of the garden.
I'm a son of no, but memory bathes its knowledge
and desire.
I'm the son of blindness, but I watch the light stretch
one wing.
I am a son of the silence in heaven,
but I cried and the dark angels went on falling.
I am the son of things as they are,
but I know them for the most part
only as they are remembered.
I'm a son of farewells and one of them will not come back,
but one of me never forget.
I am a son of violence, the ignorant herald,
but the seal is royal.
I am a son of stars never seen, never
to be seen for we will be gone before their light reaches us,
but the decisions they demand are with us now, now.
I am the son of love, but I lose you in the palm of my hand.
I am a son of prisoners, but I was got out
in the form of a gold tooth, a picture of two elders
and a platinum locket, a pair of eyeglasses
with rims of white metal, one pearl earring,
a knife with a picture of Jerusalem on the silver
handle, and I am being reassembled,
and keep finding myself, and beginning again
the process of reunion.
I am a son of hazard, but does my prayer reach you,
oh star of the uncertain?
I am a son of blindness, but nothing that we have made
watches us.
I am a son of untruth, but I have seen the children
in paradise walking in pairs each hand in hand with himself.
I am a son of the warder, but he was buried with his keys.
I am a son of the light, but does it
call me Samuel or Jonah?
I am a son of a wish older than water, but I needed till now.
I am a son of ghosts clutching the world like roads,
but tomorrow I will go a new way.
I am a son of ruins already among us,
but at moments I have found hope beyond doubt, beyond desert,
beyond reason and such that I have prayed,
oh wounds come back from death and be healed.
I am the son of hazard, but go on with the story
you think is yours.
I am the son of love, but the hangman are my brothers.
I am a son of love, but the islands are black.
I am the son of love for which parent
the blood groups in dread as though it were naked,
and for which cause the sun hangs in a cage of light,
and we are his pain.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]