Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

To Alexander of Macedon at the Feast of Samhain

2015; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 123; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/sew.2015.0109

1934-421X

Damien Douglas,

Philippine History and Culture

To Alexander of Macedon at the Feast of Samhain Damien Douglas (bio) The round world turns about its spine—So do we, bound with one sourceAbout one axis turned. Traveller, the RheinAnd Nile drawn by four winds’ motive forceReturn your bounty to its nativity:Rushes on the river after noon, sea Meadows to papyrus where the waterScrolls and lists, host to the winds blown;And seven floodways on the plains where paperRolled in sheaves beyond the rocks have grown—Our Alexandria shall still presideBeyond the Berbers’ coast; her jewels elide Perdition by simple fire. Receded now, herMillion parchments written on the seaGently lose all human form. The riverAfter is her only historyAnd ours, feluccas beaten on the SargoNear Napoli by poles and damp sirocco Winds. The stark remains of cuneiformSand-worn shone as lineal as the reedsFrom riverbanks where they are shorn, the formTo flow immutable as the PleiadesIn eternal flight. Beneath OrionYou come, Traveller, whose face is always one [End Page 658] Cusped between two rivers with Babylon;Your passage “there and back again”Assumes one thousand names which mean “my sunAnd stars shall flow.” A nameless horsemanIs beseeched by Yeats’s epitaphThat when he comes, holding sword and staff On either side, he shall pass byThat country of monument and stone, the hillsOf three days’ rest; the verses only sayThat ego is not there where the water stillsIn passages beneath the wind-quick breakersAnd our mountains flow before a watcher’s Eyes. No human voice is beckoningAbove the sea-crags its lapping notes, nor wordParceled out in human speech. The morningRose and cherry-blossom shades we’ve heardIn whispers of madness, of immortality,Are rain-flecked charnels bloomed with which we bury Your city in ourselves. Her flower’s chalice,Dust, and germs impollen our native sensesWith their memories. Hear OsirisIs only song, the dark bough risesIn green and black from its cedar bole,The lark and thrush from reed-beds call. Your stallion favored you, ox-headed beastAbove all other creatures, companion throughThe desert and alabaster mines far eastOf where your forebears lay awaiting you.Time falls away where there is light, Sekandar,Our eponymous horseman—the names of lavender, Fennel, silk, and herbs are yours; their leatheryFaces shall remain here between the batteredColonnades and elements. Our masonryAnd open trellises retrieve what splintered [End Page 659] Shards of day they sieve. Inhered to usWherever light was or could be once The earth turns, as old and bright as our race isFallen from a dust and myth. We feel the city’sHollow underground, its echoing tracesOf life’s climate—our ancient miseriesOf loneliness and loss, our artistry,Design, and ethos beside Persephone Forgotten there, no longer in the sun.The sound of Ptolemy’s lighthouse as it tumblesIs decibels above that of its creation;Made, as a water droplet fallsIn solitude, cascades between your leavesOf lavender in spring. Your bounty wreathes Its cerements in such a rain, and rivuletsShall run to wash the rubble heave and steady;And still your volumes break these minaretsAnd belvederes with weighting their gravityTo the rivers’ sleeves; a great silenceSwallows these eastern realms in subsidence As though they were another Balkh, radiantWith knowledge and with wealth before Khan’sMongols drowned its libraries. We wentBack to the river’s silt for knowledge, donnedIts faceless masks from which the letters aveCut beneath mosaics in old Pompeii Are understood, by coming back and forthAcross the banks of seasons that were drowned.We are filled with our beginnings, this north-Running Nile spilling in the blood, downInto another age of industriesWhirring softly on the scriptured seas. [End Page 660] Damien Douglas Damien Douglas was born in Anchorage, Alaska, was educated at Washington University and the University of Minnesota, and now lives in Boston. This is his first published poem. Copyright © 2015 Damien Douglas