Ekphrasis on the Frontispiece to In Parenthesis

I

“Septimus,” he asked, leaning on his spear,

“what happened to your cloak?”

                                                       The two stood,

part of the crown of people surrounding

the small hill. An eclipse was coming on.

Wind dredged their calloused hands. A baby cried.

Octavius spoke in a low voice.

“It got caught,” said the first, “on that first tree.

The wind blew as I turned my back to it.”

“The thing’s torn full in two!” Octavius

pronounced, inspecting Septimus’ back.

“It’s an ill omen, Septimus,” he said.

Some silence followed. In the half-light, no

person cast a shadow. And the gray ground

was dim, neither like evening nor like dawn,

but like some unknown, new time breaking in.

The wind blew through it all, and the red thread

shorn from Septimus on the middle tree

spelled letters slowly in the air, like ghosts

floating ambiguously from their graves.

“I’ll tell you something,” mumbled Septimus.

“For years, I’ve been in charge of digging holes

for these things. Never, in my 30 years,

has any cross stayed up straight. It’s the Spring.

The rain floods in our work. We dig new holes

each time.

             But this man, on the center cross—”

(here Septimus took one step forward, and

he let his shovel fall to the ground, like

a disused crutch, its metal clanging out

around the pebbly hill, an unreal bell)

“—this man: his cross has sagged no single jot,

as if the tree was planted there, and rain

but strengthened its rich roots.”

                                                           Septimus wept.

II

Approximate Christ with uneven hips.

It’s true, the body resists openness.

These shell-shocked trees bear no more scraggled weight.

These hands—expression of the confused will—

one gathers in, while one pushes away.

These hollow eyes un-look the bleak landscape.

No single line of the entire piece

is vertical or horizontal. But

each line points just askew, leading nowhere.

Clothe me or strip me, Lord, but save me from

this in-between place, full of mud and rats,

this somewhere-no-man’s-land full of barbed wire,

and grime, and nets, and horseflesh who-knows-what

which putrifies the ever-present muck

and sludges our feeble labors. Pluck me out.

III

Parenthesis: the shape of the spear wound

in Christ’s side, from which blood and water flow.

Parenthesis: a speech outside the speech,

that changes what the original means.

Some icons depict Mary Magdalen

collecting the outflow back in the cup.

Some say it poured directly in the ground,

healing the rift torn in old Adam’s sin.

Parenthesis: part of a larger whole

to which it refers, but illuminates.

Christ is the word. Christ in parenthesis.

Christ’s word, the wounded word, which falls short in

itself, and opens itself up to more,

a speech that speaks beyond itself within,

that did not deem equality with God

something to be grasped at—parenthesis—

but humbled Himself, opening speech up

to make room for our parentheticals,

our petty poems, all our mean asides,

all the abuse and mockery he suffered.

Parenthesis: we speak, but know not why.