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by Patrick Wallace

Moth & Rust

                                                                   What is man, that thou art
                                                                   Mindful of him?
                                                 Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
                 I.

Three score and ten years
In an age of frantic mutation of history
He carried resolute morality within himself
Through trials of dissolution and disintegration,
Constructing amidst persistent chaos
A family, a lake, the watchful house upon the hill,
From skeletal frame to paneling from timber felled upon this land,
To construct a golden age of golden years as rearguard action
Attempting to outrun the swift falling of darkness,
The always sudden funeral and its cool medicinal smell
Of hospital hallways.

Darkness descended upon the house;
Strong trees were split by angry wind
And violet-blue lightning from purple-black clouds, almost forgotten by
Lonely summer evenings and the hollow dirge of the whippoorwill,
Cold winter sunsets that pressed to the bone,
The world stopped, then pressed on unevenly,
Halt and lame.

The beaver built his lodge in the lake below the hill
The hawk reinforced the fortress of its nest
Upon a further hill
The mud snake lay frozen beneath the mud,
The bluegill, the bass, the perch slept beneath the ice,
History lurched forward, limping uphill.

                 II.

That house
That house from which
The first world was encountered
Then excursions snaked their way into the ever larger,
Ever more complex, complicated, confusing world
Irresistibly calling for growth and destruction.
That house, blistered by sun
Cracked by hoarfrost and ice,
A patient sacrifice
To mold, mildew, cobweb and dust,
A testament of decay and loss
Haven to the silverfish and mouse,
The wood louse and the termite,
Still pointing towards the garden, once lost,
Never regained.
The wind lifted the shingles, shifted the dust
And vacantly swayed the neglected door.

                 III.

Four score and two years
Her life unfolded as change exploded into
History racing, reaching, faltering into ever new realities
As through the tangle of struggle and striving
She made her way, as best she could, she made her way
Towards the quiet sainthood of resignation, duty, denial, austerity.

Seasons rolled in an accelerating succession
Generations sprang forth and grew
Rivers flooded and droughts spread
Trees grew high in the aging sunlight
Decades rolled, the dank, musty cellar bloomed
With mold. The summer weeds and flowers
Revert to autumn soil, to nourish unborn spring
In its potentiality and multiplicity of unrealized forms.

                 IV.

                       All the land shall become
                       Briars and thorns

That house
That house sat through the cycles
In slow decomposition
Promising permanence
That could not be delivered.
That house, blistered in summer,
Cracked by winter

                  O, testament of lost hope
                       And forgetfulness---
           Suddenly,
The thief in the night,
The cleansing baptism of fire
Purifies the house to ash and dust.
Hopes, plans, mistakes and sins were cleansed
Leaving only bones of black twisted metal,
Heaps of ash and sunken pits,
Charred skeleton and viscera of memory

From which the ragweed and fire weed
Will spring, the milkweed and dandelion, the foxfire
The briar and the thistle, and one day saplings,
As ash and dust blend into earth, humus, that holds
His bones, her bones, claims our bones,
As the cicada song throbs in the pulsating heat,
The whippoorwill mourns across the lake,
Chimney swifts dive and dip, skip over the surface of the lake,
Katydids drown the night with timeless rhythm

                       What is my strength that I should hope?
                       And what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

The few who try to do right
Will strive to do right
From a struggle bred into their blood and bones
As those who do wrong shall prosper

                       When I looked for good, then evil came unto me:
                       And when I waited for light, there came darkness.

Ash & Dust

                                   The thorn and the thistle
                                   Shall come upon their altars.

                 V.

                                   Where the worm dieth not
                                    And the fire is not quenched.

The saw-briar chokes the stunted impatiens
The doers of evil prosper
The seasons roll and the humble,
The meek look beyond
For salvation from a fallen world.
The righteous silently fragile,
As the melting ash of the house on the hill,
Left with life more inward, more austere.

                                    Shall the dust praise thee?

Straight and narrow, a lonely way,
More severe, the stranger treads,
Unclear, the destination.

As winter falls
Dark visiting birds
Sullenly crouch
In the barren trees
The wind that once howled
Around the corner of the house
Only rustles frozen stubble
Of weeds that grew
From the mound of ash

     Another generation is rooted in the soil
     Nourished by death

                                   For our God is a consuming fire.

                 VI.

Suddenly one wakes aware of having grown
Closer to the dead than to the living
Understanding the silent language
Spoken by dead tongues
Through the deepening comprehension of memory
In, yet beyond, time.
     Or perhaps, the giant bird,
     A black stork or crane with crow-like face,
     That climbed the cellar stairs
     And stood at the foot of the infant's crib,
     Speaking some unintelligible secret, so cryptic,
     Meaning nothing to anyone, but striving
     To say it all.
                                   But this is your hour,
                                   And the power of darkness.
Since early childhood
Neglected buildings in decay
Not historical, not new, caught between times,
Fading, peeling, falling apart, crumbling into rubble,
Had filled him with a nausea,
A sadness too deep to be contained,
A revulsion and compassion.

The mulberry tree that spread merciful shade
Over the summer garden, once filled with feasting
Birds, is shriveled and bitter
Bitter roots and bitter branches
           Fallow the garden
                 Barren the field
                       Hollow the sky

The apple and pear fall from the tree
Into over-grown, heat sickened grass
Prey to the yellow jacket and honeybee
Pecans rot beneath forgotten trees,
Or are hoarded by mouse and squirrel
In a vacant place where once a house knew life
Now a place of hungry ghosts

The rose garden of conjectured potentiality
Alas, not real in its perfection
In the constant breeze and unchanging sun
Is but a moment, a pinnacle moment,
Held in a vision as if eternal, as if
Eternity itself,
While, in actuality each moment slides and perishes
On the periphery of vision, in the corner of the eye,
Outwitting the quickest sideways glance,
In the garden lurks the imperfection of time.
As the blossoms are poised in the fullness of perfection;
Time is the worm that withers the rose.

A tatterdemalion, not more than a shadow,
Emptily stares upon the ashes
Facing the bite of a winter wind.

An angel, not more than a glint of light,
Waves in the wind, insubstantial and bright,
Speaking of a rose garden
Somewhere beyond time and place.
The tatterdemalion sways his head from side to side
Staring at the frozen ground.

This man, growing old in a rented house,
Another house growing old,
Peeling paint, clinging mold
And omnipresent dust,
This man with a capricious Buddhistic resignation
Cleans counters, washes dishes, sweeps and mops the floors,
Tied to the past by these ritual chores,
Tied to those who are gone, all that is gone by
Moth and rust, ash and dust,
Gone to the silence that follows
The cleansing fire.
Left in that dark night
Of serene desolation.
The dead are everywhere,
Never here and never gone.

(Copyright 2000 by Patrick Wallace - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

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Letter to the Author:
Patrick Wallace at patrickw@canufly.net
You're invited to visit Patrick's website at Patrick Wallace.