APOCALYPSE
IN this warm house of words
Filled with familiar curtains, tables, chairs And mirrors that resume And delicately distort the well-known room, Did you, not see him linger Between the window and the fireplace there, The august spirit that raised a beckoning finger And faded into air? • The simple eye Scanning the river-pooi discerns Ravelled root of pinetree, waterweed Waving weak arms like a dancer wearied-out, And over the pebbled pavement a slim trout Poised in motionless speed.
But the more vigilant eye sees semblances Of things not dwelling in the water-world- Phantoms of floating cloud, the ghostly swinging Of an air-tossgd bough above,
And meteorlike through branch and cloud
The brief bright apparition of a dove Over the face of the water winging.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG.
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