11. Ode to Isis

 

 

I

Thou sensate bride and groom of humankind,
Thou teenage boy and girl to dance belong,
Flora and Fauna, who cannot find,
Good salutations, so all goes wrong,
The Earth at rest is a deserving place,
For deities or mortals, or for both,
For Temples or the Liege of Head of State,
What prayers or powers are these? What peoples wroth?
What sanctity? What humankind of race?
What keys and timpani? What good elate?

II

The passionate are great, but those unspoiled
Are freer; therefore, moderate, stay with,
Listen to the sensualist, but when unclear,
Make authoritative prayer; and since,
Fair cast, draw near the pond, you have your dish,
And spoon, for now your locks can still hold sway,
Friends forever, ever would you embrace,
Those youthful are the clouds, for, make that wish,
That they won’t fade, and they would see their goy,
And learn to gravitate in their own way.

III

Ah, trodden, trodden place, that still would shine
As bright, for never would that night last long,
And, hearing of sensualists, unmarried,
To meet another is the same old song.
Make happy love! True happy, happy, love!
Forever late, who was his mother’s best,
Oh, your mother cared not about the throng,
Would part those clouds; yet, when the night surrounds,
A scalding thirst finds pleasure in the zest,
And leads few in temptation to do wrong.

IV

How’s a seamstress, who sews more like a song?
To have immediate, would one mediate?
Once more a broth boiling in close sight,
If those children spank, would not penetrate;
For delta dawn nor desert rose besieged,
Nor mountain stone, would raise ten more to come,
Yet empty were your walks, a scarcity,
That Synagogue, those times were over-sieged,
Even desolate; here, somehow a home,
A new birth might prove satiety.

V

Now ISIS war! You are childless. From breed
Of madmen and their maiden armory.
Within this earth, would sew a germ of seed,
For tillage – I reason statuary
Makes for sobriety. A pastoral
Of young refugees looks on your footway,
Where you walk down, as John Keats said –
And he would groan at ham – I think he’d say:
“How should roast lamb be won over,
For eight days, and leaven no bread?”