Come Thunder

Now that the triumphant march has entered the last street corners, / Remember, O dancers, the thunder among the clouds ... // Now that laughter, broken in two, hangs tremulous between the teeth, / Remember, O dancers, the lightning beyond the earth ... // The smell of blood already floats in the lavender-mist of the afternoon. / The death sentence lies in ambush along the corridors of power; / And a great fearful thing already tugs at the cables of the open air, / A nebula immense and immeasurable, a night of deep waters — / An iron dream unnamed and unprintable, a path of stone. // The drowsy heads of the pods in barren farmlands witness it, / The homesteads abandoned in this century’s brush fire witness it: / The myriad eyes of deserted corn cobs in burning barns witness it: // Magic birds with the miracle of lightning flash on their feathers ... // The arrows of God tremble at the gates of light, / The drums of curfew pander to a dance of death; // And the secret thing in its heaving / Threatens with iron mask / The last lighted torch of the century ...