ONE THRONE

LARGO, TEMPO RUBATO
(FROM "KORE")
by Sarah Feldman

 

I was late, coming back – walnut leaves already curling at the edges

summer nights heavy with the scent of viburnum. Over and over

as we climbed I had turned back to see the world I was leaving – not,

you understand, from any love lost, but out of fear that the place

would become otherwise once left behind: the close-breathing darkness

suddenly pricked with stars. Why should I remember you tenderly,

who believes love is not love unless the ground opens underfoot? You interrupted me

at a time when my life was about to begin, my future still whole 

and ripe with prophecy. The oracle said: You will marry the Light, and for days

I hovered like a kite in an imperceptible wind. The oracle said:

Love the earth, and you will be happy, and I learned to burrow.

You touched me – lightly, of course – and I grew solid,

a body with fixed structures and intractable gravity.

You spoke to me, calmly, as if my reply was of little importance

and I answered, knowing I could say anything

though nothing in particular came to mind.

Why hadn’t the oracles said: Love the earth and you will become earth –

exhausted, shiftless, crumbling? Like you, they understood force

was necessary but not sufficient – it’s not enough to lose the world

before one has understood it. I was informed of my fate early – but so casually

it seemed a single facet of an infinite unfolding. I was then –

but gently – drawn in towards an iron core of understanding –

always given enough freedom to break away and breathe the air,

always reined in again when the time came. I was sent back,

so that failing repeatedly to hold to what was given

I would learn to bend. I was led up and down and up,

until I heard, of my own accord, my one life calling clear

from the center of the cycle: the nothing-to-say, the years 

side by side in the kingdom of stillness, the gradual acquiescence 

to a not-unforgiving night – this is the love

I was built for.