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Martin
Burke
(from) The Lighthouse
Did
Shelley move the world forward an inch or a mile and when Whitman sang what
was the consequence?
In the lighthouse of his mind what was
Dante’s first thought?
Language denies nothing. The verb remains
the verb regardless of misabuse and even history cannot totally discredit it.
And America, America -- yes, the dream still
roots in the promise of its name and casts
a beguiling beauty on the world that Blake
foresaw and gave form to.
Yes, these are the traditions, the living
ones, the ones the mind sets its store by and draws from so as to activate
the tongue which comes and
offers its homage with verbs and nouns and
pronouns.
So how far did Shelley move it?
The inch or the mile is more than enough,
and the consequence has yet to be worked out of what Whitman unleashed.
I believe in these and them. The lighthouse
of Dante’s mind is still active in the world even if we no longer believe in
his redemptive stance.
The lighthouse still beams from the cliff
its piercing beam.
The waves and the shells are still blessed by it and beauty remains active in
the heart/the mind and the world.
There is nothing I have loved with a half intensity. It is everything or
nothing and it is everything.
I deny nothing. Neither language nor those men who illuminate the dark night
of the soul -- both of each one and of this our twilight world.
The verbs precede the pronouns. Language is uttered first in the heart and
then in the mouth.
A construction, an implement, a refuge.
Dante and Blake and Shelly confirm this and Whitman does not disagree.
And
America, America, you still intrigue me even though the whores of war have
set their claims upon you.
To move you an inch and a mile. To brighten your dark. To have Dante bless
the violent and the eyeless. To offer language. To offer beauty. To say to
you what Whitman said and say it again and again.
There are songs for this and only poetry knows them. There are blessings for
this which only poetry can give.
Here in the darkening twilight of the world I sing and I sing and I sing.
*
To have known water’s indelible mark on the skin is to have knows the lure
and the comfort of tides.
All the waters of the world speak that language; all the tides authenticate
it.
Walcott was right, blue and white are the eternal colours of the sea and even
in this dark the lighthouse light confirms it and what, just what or
who
could deny that in this or any place that is its equal or equal opposite?
Even on water Greece is never far from my mind.
I have travelled there but never so much that the heart is satisfied. The
heart, the tireless, human heart is restless -- and what can give it comfort
but the confirmations of the sea?
Moonlight on the waves is a text the waves obliterate on the shore. (And I
gather my language there.)
No, beauty, and the hunger that drives it, is never satisfied.
The night ships sail and I would sail but walk on this shore in the aftermath
of a cleansing rain.
Even on land Greece is never far from my mind.
The heart remembering, reliving what has been lived there and still lives in
the heart.
Sailors, I call out to you and would speak in your names so listen to me. The
lighthouse illumines us both. Sand and water are its domain, and the great
whale cannot invade there.
Yes, there is a peace in the heart that cannot be breached for the
confirmations are everywhere and are authenticated.
Sing sailors, sing, just as I sing and together we will form a chorus. And
what will we sing but the eternal blues and whites of the ocean and this
lighthouse.
No, the heart is never satisfied. Nor should it be and if it is breached it
is only so by beauty wanting more of itself to live by.
So my greeting to you sailors upon the sea. May all your dreams conspire with
mine to sing the blessed beauty of this place.
Only in the audacious can the heart survive.
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