FOR SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
I wear my pants
but my shoes are in my hand
I search my eyes in the mirror
for reverence and knowledge
I make my face hard as a frame
so my eyes in turn can be a mirror
they are brown and brown
they are bright in their sockets
when they are ready I put on my shirt
like the people of Thana
I am preparing myself to worship
the first thing I see in the morning
___________________
the door is guardian
to my tender hellos and farewells
and I worship the wood and the brass
the knob can latch or unlatch
so I must touch it and acknowledge
its usefulness for my staying or my leaving
which is holy either way
but the leaving is more likely
to make me love what is inside my house
the second thing I see
is the honeysuckle bush untended
so that it reaches out and up like a man
praising what he has
before him what he takes
into his mind to keep it right
in May the bush flowers
the scent goes blowing out
the bees are there in their hundreds
but the flowers
are there in thousands
and overwhelm the senses
of the bees and me
because it is of such value
I am sure the bush does the gods' will
and they love its scattered effects
as they do the teem of stars and planets
running circuits of praise in the fields of the night
or the face of the great sun
loving to give its heat to the creatures
who turn their prayers to the warm good above them
_________________
and so I worship
things in the order I see them
I remember that Adam and Eve wept 100 years
after Paradise
till they filled a lake
at the top of a high mountain
and in the reeds
growing all round the lake
live crocodiles and other snakes
and at the bottom
mud like in any lake
only thicker and blacker
it smells like roses
there are precious stones in it
and pearls and gems like mens' eyes