After the Total Lunar Eclipse
Where does a smile go, or the upward
glance,
the sudden warm movement of the
heart?
Does
the
universe
we dissolve into
taste of us a little?
Rilke, from The Second
Duino Elegy
Content to dwell in glimpses, in lifted
curtains, to save myself I turn
as when the zucchetto of the sky
slips but is invisibly steadied, and I come
back
inside while our whole world’s
awe gawk and night drunk. I’ll take you
full in the face, but I’ll duck under
the wide skirt of the maple and hide,
not shy, but, what’s it called? the
other awe,
the I’ve
held you in the dark while you broke
open
awe, the coming through
into thaw
after a long, long winter out? I think:
in the cradle of my elbow, where a new baby’s
almost always content, there your head
sunk in rest in me, sunk deep beneath
(others,
gawkers, scoff, but we blink them
away) and times like these, rare beneath
fall’s
shifts and canopies, I’m the Magdela
on her knees and Jesus, dead and free, finally
draws
open her veil. And though soldiers,
though
brothers rant or weep, she, with all the
bloody
muster, wipes the stones, gibbet, and
all,
rubs up the air, temple stones, road
stones,
any cauterizing- the- puncture stone,
cascading into the hole when it’s all,
after
the appointed hour, lifted out. And when, open-
mouthed like the cave, it goes dark
as gelded
breath and she tastes in such dark the
betraying
rain, it’s musth-dust, the brand new
sweating hollow. Oh Mary.
We have only
to look and look
away.
We come back with the winding
sheets and the sweet viscous grease. Under our
gauze this eclipse never passes. But we
step out, stumble over, fall through. Soon
the light of noon. Soon the second then
the third day. Soon the closed stone’s rolled.
Soon, though veiled, soon: she/he
you/me: Rabboni! Free.
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