there is a leaden eye where no wind blows
and time spins to a stop:
the
minute-hand of action waits,
the
pendulum hangs poised;
but no impulsive works of impotent men
will dull one fury of the looming hour
or brake one moment of its drop.
Northward, swept by the hiss of centuries,
where white wastes wallowed out to whiter skies
and Earth rocked on her pole,
a radar
camp outlined the snow;
a radome
platform creaked:
here, shot from humming pods of fretted steel,
a pulse of semi-automated mind
rang on invisible patrol.
Five miles beyond a near dove under, shattered
pack and rubble of a freezing ledge
and threw itself ashore;
taut on
the scentless gale he posed,
then
straightening southward, fled.
computing through torn claw and ice the track
of dread propellers churning underfoot
along the Arctic floor.
Racing electronics down the continents,
quick panic rippled out a prescient sea
of nerve: galvanic
thrill
stampeded
herds of caribou
along the
tundra ridges,
bellied wolverine among the pine,
flew down rain forest on the rump of deer,
left gopher chattering, until
a lizard sleeping in the desert sun
unshuttered one slow eye to see what, then
leaped sideways twice and died:
his
private hill crushed back on him;
the fatal
countdown stopped.
Climbing the air, a thousand bombs burst space
at pre-impressed velocities, and launched
their long, inevitable glide.
The curve of her celestial ellipse
Earth endlessly composed, half dark, half light,
at her majestic pace;
beyond in
splendour rolled the stars;
while
here, computer-based,
all circuits clear, their new Prometheus
punched out in coded, electronic shocks
the final hubris of a race.
From two caves carved in Plutonian shield
beneath two deserts, East and West, encased
in concrete overthrow
on steel
Hell-bent for megatons
of
thermonuclear pressures;
challenging the Universe by force,
this time, of secret sub-atomic fire
from the Suns, effect unknown,
unconquered and unconquerable yet,
he freed his eager miracles for war.
Tartarean armories,
harnessed
in lockstep at command,
blazed
rockets to the air.
And now sub-orbital flew rank on rank
and name by name a pantheon of man's
subliminal mythologies:
globe-cursing Atlas, shouldering the world,
and Minuteman whose oath transfigured it,
forefathers of revolt,
now
classified ICBM,
inertial
guided, range
eight thousand miles, vertex at apogee
one hundred, warhead hydrogen, presumed
to blot one city at a bolt;
and cold Polaris, guardian of Night,
and Jupiter that braced the shields of Rome,
and Thor, crude Viking Thor,
whose
thunder rang on seven seas,
now
stamped IRBM,
perimeter and submarine deployed,]
range intermediate, quantity produced
for mass retaliatory war;
and Nike squadron: Hercules who stormed
the syndicates of Hades once, again
atomic, thermo-fused,
the
strato-bomber intercept;
and
elemental Zeus
who toppled Titans from Olympus, born
the anti-missile missile, that same Zeus
who held Prometheus accused
in treason once before.
All these and more
flamed now to terminal velocities:
each one identified,
plotted
by radar on a screen,
its
counter-strokes applied.
And as they fell, exploding Earth and air,
in one slow cumulative holocaust
Hell melted, and Prometheus died.
Man, who from his mystery unfurled
a gossamer of meaning and a World
to fling a web of thought
amazed
across the Infinite,
curled
inward, and grew old;
the stars, the galaxies, the speed of light,
the living abstract of his Universe,
and ever miracle it caught,
collapsed in swift retreat of consciousness
down blurred processionals of day and night
where fire demon ran
the
witching skies instead of sun,
and
dragons rose again
to rumble in the caverns of the earth;
and downward hurled, until at twilight's end,
silent, the long abyss began.
Down in the quiet crucible of storms,
down in the primal deep where no winds blow
and time dreams to a stop,
the
minutes-hand of action waits,
the
pendulum hangs poised...
O God, tell us what perfect works of men
will break the circle of that looming hour,
annul the moment of its drop.
and look that you are not
and seeing you
knew all the time you were
I say you are not here
and tell love stop
and turn away
yet singing know you near
I say you are not here
nor there nor anywhere
Except where I may be
is where you are
and when you are I am
and there you are
I say you cannot be
yet still you come
Like rain upon the nightroof of my mind
all soft and pattering and warm
and gather in the eaves of some imagining
and pour down drains of dream
and drench the earth
where I die bursting there
where I live bursting there.