As does a man who from an areoplane

Leaps for heart-stopping sport hang for the half,

Half-second that his heart is stopped, and sees

The world spread out below, amid the clouds,

And wheeling slowly, like the stars at night,

Until gravity finds its grip again,

So somewhere it was somewhere, and above

A myriad of what he could not tell,

As glittering jewels clustered too close

To tell one from the next by aught but touch,

A figure floated, falling through the black

That slowly was pushed back by radiance

From that which shone below, as winter night

Is abjured by a throng of colored lights.

Somewhere it was nowhere, but below

Was somewhere, and as he toward somewhere fell

Through nowhere, the slow light around him spread

And made him no mere figure, but again

Boxer and Champion and his own self.

Somewhere there were somewheres, for as Shane

The shining facets reached at last, he saw

In each a world, as one sees rooms, along

A railway car at night, through lit windows:

Each glimpsed a moment in its true essence,

Then only afterimage burning out.

Shane turned, to ask the girl where all these were,

But she was gone, and where how could he guess?

So all alone he tumbled through a throng

Of momentary glimpses of some time

And place, somewhere somewhen. He saw a shore

Where to the waves thin men in cowls brought glass

In wagonloads, in fragments, in the mist,

Shards of green bottles, pale brown jugs, and heaps

Of ice-like crystal shards of windowpane,

With here and there a rare and costly flash

Of crimson, royal purple, deep lapis

Lazuli, from a chapel window, like

The gems deep-hoarded by the jealous hills.

Before the sunrise, these they cast into

The churning surf, to roll between its huge

And grinding fingertips. Then as they turned

To take their empty burdens back up to

The cloistered moor, the dawn distantly broke

And through a crack of clouds a single ray

Instantly made the whole beach blaze with light

Refracted from the centuries of glass

Polished by tides to pebbles, to fine sand.

They hummed old chants, gently, each to himself

As the thinning sea mist was washed back. And-

-Beneath a pile of arches, tiered upon

Eachother like a wedding cake gone mad

To trebled trebled layers, but each arch

High vaulted near enough to fit a whole

Himalaya through it, and only graze

The edges barely, sprawled a heap of vines,

Beside the gothic points no more than grass

But to the awe-drowned band that stood beneath

Higher than redwoods. Each looping trunk trailed,

As some primeval angel, drunk and dumbed

On beatific visions crafts a sham

And shabby imitation of the bliss

He sees above, beyond, and makes a world,

So did the vines in twisting ape the vaults,

Make arches in disorder. There instead

Of glazing or mosaic on the domes

Of creamy marble higher than the sky

The vines bore leaves twice wider than a man

And pale transparently in every rich

Sad color of autumn. The tint spread down

Across the wondering pioneers, as they

Took shelter from the gentle thunderstorm

Wedged underneath the clerestory. And-

-Among the first few fitful snowflakes came

A mother dressed in what were almost rags

Out of the frosty leafless garden, through

The maze of cobblestones, to the attic

Where her three children waited, like martyrs

In silent dungeons taste apocalypse,

Their anointed's return, and a new earth.

All day, each day, she toiled to feed the child

Of some other woman, who heeded not

The cries of anybody's children, but

Left at the day's end a single gold piece

That meant another day of shelter, that

Meant coal upon the stove, meant shoes, meant milk,

And to go with that milk she carried too

The strands of dough still clinging to her hands

From long day's kneading into others' bread

Her own brow's sweat. She hurried homeward. And-

-In the close smoky darkness, sudden shocks

Of thunder squeezed into a sole second

Moved closer by a half inch at a time.

Down in a muddy hole, a company

In uniforms once innocent of mud,

In bodies once unmarked by weariness,

In souls once confident they could endure

All wars, all battles, and to ripe old age

Remain unscathed, passed round a flask, then drew

Their battered weapons. The next impact threw

Dirt over them like the grave's first handful

As they climbed to their feet. The smoke cleared, and-

-In gilded windows, as the water pools

Upon each shell-like tier of the fountain,

So pooled there light, music, and glimmering,

And memory of warm rich scents on nights

Nigh infinite in twilight and good cheer.

The beams glanced out through empty space beneath

The isle on which the palace sat, drifting

So high above the clouds that men below

Might take it for a comet. Inside, there

Were paper lanterns strung like luminous

Pale melons on the vine, or little moons,

And perfumed wines, and glint of pearl and gold,

But no laughter. The music was not glad.

The perfume in the wine was bittersweet.

Even as those within drank their last pledge

And the musicians played cathartic hymns

The floor shook. All the lights went out. Tremors

Rattled the glasses and the high windows.

With fearful groans the island listed. And-

-Beneath a hurricane, a splintering ship

Rolled back and forth between mountains of sea

And on the deck a boy sat, clutching tight

A message in a bottle, fished from some

Barnacle pool, a lashing round his waist

To hold him to the mast, and eyes wide with

More fear than human heart can hold, and live.

Around him ropes were flailing, rags of sail

Were by the wind tossed like the ribbons trailed

By a young maiden dancing on the May.

The spars were shattered and the hull was cracked,

And so absorbed were all the crew against

The thousand wounds at which the sea poured in

That only the boy saw, when lightning flashed,

The thin black figures, whirling on the wind,

With long, spidery arms and legs, licking

Their longer fingers through their long teeth. And-

-With a sepulchral snap, the next to last

Stick of pale twisted wood was broken, and

Cast on the guttering embers of the fire.

Its warm light reached just far enough to paint

The faces half-asleep around it hunched.

It reached neither the cave walls, nor the roof.

It reached not the blank bank of drifted snow

That stopped up the entrance, and muffled the

Wild blizzard's howling into muted moans;

No more a madness shriek, rather the slow

Vibrations, humming through the bone marrow

From a finger along a goblet's edge

That suffocatingly surround, as did

The dark, the cold, the cave's eternal night

And winter springless forevermore. And-

-The slow relentless rhythm of the rain

Beat down upon the shingles and splashed drops

Upon the children's bare feet. From the roof

Their father passed them one by one into

The boat that rode against the eves. The dark

And muddy water strained against the walls.

They groaned in drowning protest. Just in time

The father stepped into the boat, bearing

The family bible, some photographs,

And one surviving seedling from the hills

Where now their orchards all were drowned. The boat

Pushed off into the rain-filled night. The house

With one last shudder splintered down and splashed

Beneath the newborn sea, to driftwood. And-

-Through a glass bubble, one man watched alone

As far beneath enough to see the whole

World wheeling slowly, the green grainy globe

Rolled in its orbit groove between the sun

And his pitifully small planet built

Of tinfoil, crystal, wires, and too much hope.

As night's shadow reached from the world, he could

Now see the sulfur-colored flashes where

Once had shone cities. All the dim night-face

Was pockmarked with the sudden flares of gun,

Of napalm, missile trail, and cluster bomb,

Of high explosive, and the deeper dark

That swallowed each. Beyond, he saw the stars.

His hand was pressed against the glass, but there

Was no more he could do than if it all

Were written in history, and he read.

So he watched fruitlessly, in fury. And-

-A single dandelion seed, swept up

By fickle winds far from the friendly plains

To mountain heights, that since the rock took shape

From fire and moltenness eons ago

Had never felt the slightest touch of life,

Had lodged within a hairline crack. Its roots

So thin as to be two-dimensional

Threaded shallowly through the pressing stone

To snatch whatever moisture seeped between

Rocks in this hard place, ere it froze, faded,

The moment it touched ground. The leaves were pale

And bleached by sun too near and yet too cold.

The veins stood out like spiderwebs. The tips

And edges were curled up like plastic film

Under a blast of sudden searing air.

The fronds were like the cloth upon an old

And too cheaply made lamp which after years

Of roasting in the paltry radiance

From bulb barely sufficient, needs but one

Unconscious touch to fall to nothingness

And oily powder that will not wash off.

It was a twisted, stunted, sorry thing.

But though the universe entire was turned

To herbicide against it: the bare rocks,

The arid peaks, the coldly blistering nights,

The frigid searing day, the heavy sky,

Still did it bear a lonely flash of gold,

A single ember fallen from the sun,

For no procreation, for no use, for

No beauty ever glimpsed by mortal eye,

Only for the achievement of its end

It flowered suicidally above

The world, on its unfriendly, high throne. And-

-So thick upon the stony hills that they

Seemed like an orchard stood a multitude

Of crosses, each with its victim affixed

And bleeding, under angry red eclipse.

And there were some in robes of innocence,

And some in dented armor with the nails

Driven through steel and flesh both. There were some

In furs and talismans barbaric, some

In hermit rags and crazed prophetic beards,

And some in poet's laurels, some in cloth

Of gold and purple, some in velvet gowns,

And some with chains yet hauling at their wrists,

Some old, some young, some only children. Some

So scarred and scourged they seemed scarcely human,

And some in gentle silk, and some in crowns,

And some in nothing but their skin. But all

Were whispering through gritted teeth the same

Defiant litany, in harmony

As the wind rose through their Golgotha. And-

-As one by one the world consuming fires

Burned out among the dark colossal shapes

Of cloud giant and devil wolf, of god,

Hero, blackguard, archangel, heretic,

Elf, heartless warlock, ghoul, and walking tree,

Ice titan, demoness, and dragon: all

Now lying slain and slaughtered, from a grove

Of ash trees, bent and trampled, but alive,

Stepped forth a man and woman. They looked out

Cautiously, full of wearisome relief,

Upon the plain of Armageddon, now

Already fading: blood pools turned to lakes,

Gigantic corpses turned to grass green hills,

The pits that thermonuclear hammer

Had gouged now filling up to sighing seas.

They sat on a high cliff that once had been

A great crusader's helm, looking out at

The sun's stepdaughter rising from the waves

That formed where tears innumerable had flowed.

They shared a meal of apples, bread, and wine.

The man called his wife Eve, for she would be

The mother of all living, someday. And-

-The million, million stars so far below

Shone from each corner of the concrete heights

As through the midnight rolled the globe as slow

As futures inevitable. The lights

Stenciled a city's shape onto the black

Making of all these unrelated lives

A single work of art, that dissolves back

To nothing as among them you arrive,

The stars resolved to streetlights, windows, signs.

While, in between, the darkness shaped itself

To towers looming on perspective lines,

A symphony of power, time, and wealth:

Unfeeling stone transformed to feeling by

The human scores under inhuman sky.

But as the cityscape all around swelled

It seemed to blur, as does a painting when

You stand too close to catch the form, and see

No painting, only paint. Shane suddenly

Felt round him air, motion, and darkness. In

The indistinctness he felt his feet touch

The hard cold of concrete. His ankles swam

In icy puddle, and the echoes beat

Around his ears from somewhere. Somewhere it

Was dark and dank, like a lost catacomb.

Shane followed the echoes, which seemed to pour

Along the cavern, rushing from their source.

Somewhere he dimly saw an outlined shape

Ahead, less dark upon the darkness, like

An archway. Even as he groped toward it,

It suddenly was filled with light, and then

A roaring stampede of metal and glass

Lit from within by lightning colors charged

Across the portal past his face. The train

Sped away from the boxer, who followed

With disbelieving steps and slow. He watched

The rearmost car retreating out the mouth

Of the tunnel, into the pale grey light

Of city overcast and midwinter,

Of somewhere skies were scraped by silhouettes,

That he had never thought to see again.