At Its Near Lowest

   

At Its Near Lowest

When he stands in the judgement place

with his stick in his hand and the broad hat

Still on his head, maimed by self-doubt

And an old disdain of sweet talk and excuses,

It will be no justice if the sentence is blabbed out.

He will expect more than words in the ultimate court

He relied on through a lifetime's speechlessness.

                                                                Seamus Heaney

                                                                "The Stone Verdict"

The opening in the stones is only

visible at low water and then

the lowest still is unapproachable.

It's closest to a door beneath

the river and because

I don't know the way

of rivers going I can thoroughly

sit and watch what's stationed from

above the run-off caught all summer

in the century -ago- placed - stones:

leafless trees, two or three 

fishing buoys, broke free their lead,

bobbles for last season's cast-off Christmas

song.  It's an oracle, that door.

Maybe, if I'd come walking

down river with the same boots as

I'd wear out 

toward low tide I'd reach,

pull up the tops to my crotch and walk

past all the crockery,

river glass, all that's lobbed

off (or pocketed-because 

in time I might find enough

of this one pattern to resemble

a memory) and walk, v'ing the discrete

strips of Jesus

bugs skimming the water, slip

on the slime all waters contrive

to make, toward that door

in the dam.  It's open, I only

just noticed. It's always, even

when the river's full

of itself and insisting its winter

pickings, even with it's behind

the tossed-over-the-face-to-make-

(remember Frost's birches?) of the goddess's

gate-keeper a freedom...I'm told, though I can't

tell you who told me, to have my question

ready and written

on my best slip

of paper and then

make my way with it

in my fingers - and - on arriving -

and after bowing 

to the breath of the old river tucked 

in the lung of the stone

bellows behind the vestibule,

find the right seam between (but see, it's discrete)

two hand hewn boulders and heave

but please, like a ballerina and only her

best parrying: demi seconde, (it's the peace

between I need) of the arms-

and then the pinch

of the fingers, the rooted feet

in the deepest creeping weeds - 

reach, nearly commensurable with 

myself or near enough 

to it I'm willing to break my knees