Cassandra Retires to the Country

I was a long country time
finding the spout of that shower of stars
flung from earth

that sparkling milky way
spilt straight to heaven --
or what passes for it

so long, so long
speaking in tongues
dead and yet to echo
echo in rocky places
in wasted spaces
still echoing
still

Back to the stars.

I had to trespass through pasture
and somebody’s barn to find them --
past the old blind man
with clouds in his eyes, like the milky way gone dead,
who rocks on his porch ‘til the cows come home,
counting coins with his fingers.
I had to tie up his old blackdog,
too old to love for dread of the losing of him.
I had to learn lark to trick the crows.
I had to lose my way for awhile,
circling hot fields of stinging nettle
following the snake again,
feeling with bare feet for the charge
under the hummocks of hay and manure.

But I found the source of the stars
secret in a patch of wood.

A flaming ash tree in a rushing stream,
silver on fire twisting, hissing, melting through the roots,
spiraling up again, shooting sparks around the moon

No sooner did I know it for what it was
than it fell
tilting the milky way
and every last thing on earth.

I’m not looking for someone to comfort me or to blame
It’s bigger business than any one of us
when the world goes crooked
and fire works on water
and stars fall backwards.

But here at the end of this time
It’s still in my nature to have to know.

An answer will come. I will be cursed for it.
People no longer think I’m mad --
madness is out of fashion.
But I will be cursed
for revealing everything,
for believing nothing.

So I watch and wait awhile by the river
dumb as the rocks
under water, under fire, under the stars
passing over, passing over, passing over
passing