Last Thoughts Before the Revolution
My father the king was god, my father
the king is dead; him and his chariot
lost on twilit shores of unhappy isles.
When I was young, I walked the windgraven
standing stones, that point out the swordbelt of
Orion, the dusky unwinking eye
of Mars; into the lith, a dagger carved,
the sign of dead druids, long laid in the
barrow. What shall mark my grave? Not a word.
They will pry the garnets from my dagger,
they will melt the silver from my cloak-clasp,
they will make mock of my body. Even
the bull—I remember his hot blood in
the red dust of the sacrificial pit!—
his bones and fat were burnt on the temple
pyre, with proper rites, among mourning girls.
They may make a goblet of my skull. They
may make a flute of my thigh’s bone. How can
they? I ran on these legs with the children
of thanes, with these fingers I cracked the white
pulp of pomegranates, painted, poured wine.
My eye, the astrologers said, full of
the blue wisdom of the sea. No statue
for this face, but an axe. No red-gold torc
for this neck, but a gibbet. Where is it
written, that fifteen springs can be enough?
In my sixth I climbed the garden cedar
fetching a clutch of speckled songbirds’ eggs;
I stumbled, I cried out, I fell headlong:
the undreaming stuff of them spilled on the
flagstones. I am that wan yolk now—this arm
could have raised a scepter, while that arm spread
its feathers, and I’d become that new thing
that lays a shadow across the sunrise.
My eye shall be full of the red wisdom
of ruin. But no one has seen a bird
that never flew or will; my god is dead.
