image borrowed from bing
thirty four final questions addressed to the Book of the House, its readers, & its poets
will the thunder of galloping horses resound in the sky over the poem of the dream of the book of the house... will the sound of such horses lift us over & beyond the margins & limits of the above... will it spill & swirl like the dervish dance of the ecstatic seekers of the immanence of god... hiss & bray while beating its wings against the dark... crash across the surface of the roaring waves... curl into the vortex... echo within the orange breaking of dawn... resound within the purple setting of sun... pour its sweat as replenishing rain over the nakedness for which we will no longer feel fear or shame... will this great dream-vision of horses tear an immense opening in the heavens... will the red horses run this way & the black horses run that... will the white horses turn in circles & the horses with hair of yellow corn refurrow the earth against every being & thing which is no longer wild?
...we do not know this, but we believe, hope, & pray that it
will be so...
& will the smoke which ascends to the heavens when we have put fire to the book of the house please the nostrils of god... this fire inside the poem of the dream of the book of the house... will the cry of the life-giver rise from the ashes of the burnt book... hey yah hey yah hey hey yeh heh yah... will sun & moon join hands in embrace & dance in circle around this bonfire of singing flame... will wolf howl amidst the laughter of coyote & coyote yelp amidst the baying of wolf when each perceives the brightening of sky above the burning of the book... will flames arise from such a fire such flames as never before imagined... will fires burn upon the clouds... will flames arise upon the waves & break themselves singing across the shore... will the nostrils of galloping horses & wonderstags snort & chortle with branches of flame... will the poem of the dream of the book of the house fire chant in the glory of its own demise... will the grapes grow riper, deeper, & darker upon the vine... will the creator & the teacher reveal the threads of the vastness to all... will we see & hear with new eyes & ears cleansed by the fire of such a flame... will we sense & feel with new bones, muscle, & flesh bathed in the smoke & ash of such a flame?
...we do not know this, but we believe, hope, & pray that it
will be so...
& will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the condemnation of the tens of thousands of voices which have sought its demise... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the endless repetitions of those memories of the violations against its will... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the distance between memory & tremble... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the uncertainty of doubt surrounding the scream of the impossible to imagine or bear... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the ecstasy of the persistence of god... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the trial of the ostracism by stone... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the abjection of destitution & poverty... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive its own memories, itself... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the fury of those horses sent to ensure the very possibility of its own survival... & will the poem of the dream of the book of the house survive the possibility of survival itself?
...we do not know this, but we believe, hope, & pray that it
will be so...
Bruce Stater
Posted over on Poems and Poetics
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