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Martin Burke
Orpheus
First Song
There was and there is, the past and the present Water flowing in several directions Though it flows from the self-same source
Which is how memory works –bedding down and branching out And touching the extraordinary it calls up and embraces
Which is not to say that everything is understood It isn’t –but that does not matter
As water brings with it details of the annunciation Something which, if not fully understood, it at least subscribed to
Orpheus Tells How It All Began
How can I say how it all began- The silence gave birth to words And words gave birth to everything that followed
I followed. This way and that. Without a map In a land I did not know the geography of But one which welcomed me as if to say ‘This is now your home’
And so I am neither citizen nor exiled Or I am both and that does not matter
Only the words matter All else can be lived without Yet without them nothing can be lived to the full
Exiled, citizen, itinerant through the streets of a strange city- This is what I have become, what I was born for And what I will leave behind me
Origins? I can tell you nothing more that I have told you here. The city is both familiar and strange The language is one which I am attempting to learn
From the Hymns of Orpheus
To the Sun
First of all things- Even the gods are astounded! Bright eye of heaven Giver of light Source that death cannot wipe out Emanation of the Nuclear Will Bringer of daylight, destroyer of dark Deathless and beautiful You are more than the sum of these names
Yours is the eye that does not close The warmth that prevails and is endless For which on this bow of seven strings I play my veneration
To Fire
Untamed Raging in the core of the mind Innocent yet purging Innocent yet capable of destruction
To sing the fiery core of fire is no easy thing And yet I have sung And sing again in these lines and those others Of how you have lit a mind and burned the wanton frame
To Mnemosyne
Wife to Jove -and that is no small thing- Mother of the nine How fitting that I should make your name The touch-stone of my poem
The mind that does not know you Is fallen out of grace with the source; It wanders in the shadow-zone of lost language, It has no true foundation and thereafter all is exile.
Chains yoke the word to sorrow and pain. Death is seems is unending and master of everything That seeks to speak –and yet you speak as if Death was for the mending
So come, teach me now. Drive sorrow underground Or into some darkness it cannot escape. Teach me the rightful words by which I might say One verse that was simple and honest and true.
To th divinity of dreams
Of the many and diverse gods you are the most mysterious and beguiling. Your language is that which is spoken at night whispering to the mind in bewilderment and confusion the clarity of your intention. Awake, alert, mindful and ready the mind can not access you. Your have your purpose in darkness and do not yield to the day. You come with prophecy, with memory, with a confusion of images to disturb the settled sleep we ease into. Your fellow gods know you but we only know the little we can remember and yet that signature is enough to go by, to make our days expressive of the night. Yes, a mystery, a concealment, an exposure to be developed by degree –so come, bewilder the mind once more, bring your charm, amaze me and leave all evil things behind
To death
You have proved yourself to be adept and skilful you can be found everywhere there is nothing that you have not touched your absence and your presence determines our life and no one, no one escapes you. You cut down what is strong. you uproot what is deeply rooted; you are a judgement, a pronouncement, and no art can control you. Prayers will not appease you and yet I pray- for a life that may be well spent before you come and can only take a husk.
Landscape and sunlight
Landscape and sunlight–where am I and what does it matter?
As it was in the beginning -though there is no beginning Nor end that I can see
There is water and language and they flow into each other There where the sunlight breaks the darkness and amends the shattered day
Orpheus Considers Certain Images and Themes
Words prompt words toward the silence they will shatter
Words and actions – action and words –you cannot separate one from the other
Cast away what you have gathered –there is language to be found in this
Life prompts thought – thought prompts words –words prompt action
If you don’t see what I tell then I don’t tell it clearly enough
The soul is also an instrument to be plucked
My wishes for you are real
Whatever you say will complete you
The mountain exhausts –and blesses- those who climb it
The road to the future? There are many roads. There are many futures.
To delve into origins –will you dare?
What you are to the mirror you are to the world
Bells! Bells! Sunday and the old people
At sunup, at dusk, the similar colours
Without love the world contracts and shatters
Music –yes, from the most unexpected of places
Later you will understand – later you will grow into what you understand
The white stone and the black stone –which one is the opposite of the other?
She steps through the olive grove and the world stops to watch
Mountain and ocean –and the beauty of the girls who walk there
You do not know the man – you only know his statue
The colour of her eyes and hair is the colour of the world
A bird and a woman – but which is which?
He became the sacred waters he spoke of
Shatter the reed then play the music
This mound of stones says that others have walked this path
The swimmer in the sea and the swimmer in the mirror are the same
He strikes at stones –and though old, the sparks fly!
Red, red, the beauty of red
The flags have been lowered. The streets are empty. What then was that disturbing noise?
The anchor on the quay-wall is embedded in my heart
And all the windows of the house open to the world
These pages cannot ignore that rose
I sing out of love and not out of hate. I sing for this beloved country.
How did I get this far? How much further have I to go?
And the young singer with his guitar
Dreams are the proof of dreams
Take from the sky what the sky can give. Take from water what water can give.
And poetry –an affirmation, a repentance
And history singing in that young girl’s song
How can we know the dance unless the dancers dance?
August, August, and the orchard is full
And the heart is full – yes, even as it prepares for a journey it does not know the destination of, the heart is full
What you are in the mirror you are to others –or are you?
In the dark the mirror mirrors the darkness of god
And what sorrow sings is as haunting as what love sings
The island at evening – colour under the clouds
Only the fractured heart possesses true authenticity
And he talked about the sky as if it was not there
And your name is the country I wander in
How many words do you need to describe the silence?
Poetry – the first word and the last
Room, lamp, mirror, -the elements of a poem
I wait but the boatman has already departed
A sun sinking over an evening most decidedly Greek
The naked, the visible, which is the more beautiful?
Let me say it again –poetry, the first word and last
Orpheus Watches The Dancers
Greek Seven in a field on a morning That could have been the first morning of creation
I watched and I watched and believe me For once the words which might equal their steps Would not come but I did not mind
For there is a point of stillness and quietude Which dance and language aim for And if I was speechless then so were all things
And only the sun shone with certainty on that day.
I will be remembering and retelling this as long as I live- Seven dancers in a field on a morning in which All the world seemed to dance in Greece -
Something lived for and expanded to embrace The circle they formed and the circle they joined Which without their steps would have come to nothing.
I will be remembering and retelling this When all else fades into the dark –seven dancers in a field Trampling myth and history into dust!
Orpheus Listens To The Night Music Of The World
Sadness and sadness yet there is gayety also Bells and voices harmonise.
Nocturnes of longing that that rip the scales of reason and say Something more that reason must be found
And it is –in the silence, in the bells, in the sights that escape The captivity the lovers also escape from
And beauty, always beauty, no matter what sadness Is raging through the world.
So celebrate that. Celebrate and name the longing it gives rise to- The one that causes the motions of the waves
As they approach and shatter on the beach In that language which loves the sand-
Transcribed, translated, spoken of here as Seek Me, Find Me, Name Me.
Second Song
Light shattering darkness Language shattering silence Say yes to both and write the poem
Be lucid as water and dense as stone Be true to the first impulse
Thereafter, though there is no thereafter You will become what you witness
The voice will grow lucid and the soul grow dense As into the oncoming shadows you move Like one given right of passage
Orpheus sings Virgil’s 4th Eclogue
Poem –be as daring as only you can Old things have passed away –new things will come There is that foretold beauty in the sky Justice will come when the new god comes so befriend him- He brings all that is beautiful and new He demolishes the old falsehoods. Time will bear his name and time will be easy. Suspicion, fear, exile –all these will pass away. The rose and ivy will flourish by the wall The earth itself will be plentiful. Prophecy –and no less than that- comes upon us. The world turns to its appointment and nothing will be disappointed. Troy will come, Achilles will come and what could be better than that? Nothing could nor will and lamentations will cease Even memory will be cleansed of its pain And you will see the flowering of all that falls Between the thistle and the stone. And if you do not see this then you will be blind The singers will sing and the songs will come easy And even the comely gods will be astounded. So ready yourself, verse. All this and more will come to pass And you must sing of it as if You already knew the golden kernel in the stone And the silver kernel in the moon.
Orpheus Sings Of The Beauty Of The World
To waken to bells To wake as if it was the first morning of creation To find ‘I will’ rising in the mouth desiring to be spoken Words and beauty, words and beauty –I have nothing else nor do I want it And the beauty of the wave upon the beach And the water-washed stone And the profound first light of morning Yes, yes, yes, I sing yes to the world and the heart’s delight First light, first dawn And the silence the bells break through and bless Praise for all things in this light Praise for the beauty of the world Praise also that song can rise to meet the growing beauty of the day And the heart thumping wildly And the mind brightly bewildered As if music was visible –and it is As if music was understood –and it is As if the music that rose from earth and the music that rose from the poem was the one music Consider the rose It opens to dawn and does not hesitate It yields to the light It adds to the tone of the bells that ring glory on the world And language reaching for it In these lines and those others As it considers the rose As it considers a response to the bells As it sings the growing beauty of the world Sing Yes to beauty and language Sing Yes to the one sun father Sing as befits the heart in its joy and let there be no reluctance Let the heart sing the first and second song of joy -and the beauty of night not forgotten- Let the heart attest what it can attest Let the mouth and language follow where it leads Yes, for beauty, all things for beauty I have sung for nothing else nor will I At dawn or in the seasons of night At one season and another Through the ice on the rose in December into the annunciations of April Singing –and no end to it nor one wanted Neither in Greece nor elsewhere –though there is no elsewhere once beauty strikes a particular place and illuminates all things accordingly Illuminating the shadows on this page and the page of my life And song and celebration reaching to extend themselves upon all things And the beauty of the statues and the shadows –praise for this also- And the eye –and it is a splendid instrument- receiving all and the mouth singing all Here and hereafter In this and every song that greets the dawn
Third Song
Some subtle amazement winds its way into and out of the heart
The mind is joyous and the earth seems good
And language –ah language, what would we be If we did not have words?
We would be an empty bell, a hollow shell In which the sea refuses to echo
Unlike the shell I place to my ear And hear the canticles of the ocean
Whenever I listen.
Praise for all things that are and will be! Praise for the world as it is!
The swan’s pure glide The script of bark on ash and linden tree Are such as to hold all the wonderment the world Is capable of and it is capable of so much
No less this stone from Jerusalem which I carry with me As if all the world was contained in its core
From which some subtle amazement winds its way into the heart And there is no end to the joy that may be sung
Such as I sing and will sing again for this the splendid earth.
Orpheus Sings In The Style Of A Certain Greek Poet
Light enters the ancient room but there are no shadows The dust has not been moved And three women sit mourning in a corner
This is what the world comes down to this morning There is nothing else nor need there be There is neither absence nor abundance
The clock ticks –and suddenly a young man walks to the market If you look you will see three pomegranates in his hand
Orpheus Considers History and Divinity
Bound to both, and wanting no less, I take joy in both as they are revealed to me
The one leads to the other and the one is not to be understood without the other
They are the ply’s of the rope and not to be separated
What’s not rendered beautiful by manifest beauty occurring?
All things in the light of both, all things
And the waves of history and the waves of divinity
In general and specific time
There, in time, in history, and in the mind of the Nuclear Will
And the Beautiful transforming the sordid
In time for all times, in the specific place but for all places
And both an illumination
The one not contemplated without the other – the one not complete without the other
I saunter through the by-roads of history but my steps are hurried whenever I turn my thoughts to divinity
Yes, turning in this time, seeking the beautiful in the sordid and history not complete without it
What I love I do not necessarily understand
Watching the dancers and seeing how they celebrate both
Finding evidence of both in a beloved place
As history unwinds from a spool –as he said it does- to end in Jerusalem and Ithaca
Ithaca, Ithaca, the heart has loved you and been faithful to Jerusalem
For wherever I walk I am always walking to those sacred cities
In time and place seeking the timeless and placeless
Watching where water runs in several directions the one course that it follows
Watching, watching
Singing the joy of both at the seasons of dawn and midnight – and what can be sung without them? Nothing, nothing, all things in history and divinity
And true silence the best response to the rose but I cannot be silent
Rose of perfection, rose of desire, to find you in the folds of history
And the perfect beauty of this stone in the shambles of this time
Even so, even so, loving what is inherent in time
Giving it names – calling it all the verbs of the world
Sighing for beauty at midnight
Sighing down the long avenue of trees that lead to the flowing waters
Sighing and singing – longing and desire –and all things named by this
This and no less
No other name, no other verb
Beauty and history as the frost blights the rose but the rose retains its essence
As water does flowing in several directions at once –this is history and divinity
And words rising to break the cold silence, to sing, to celebrate, to give voice to the desires of the heart
And the heart has many desires both within and without history
And the heart weaving a course between both and uniting them like the ply’s of a rope that ends in the gates of Jerusalem where I am exile and singer
All things for beauty and nothing sung that does not sing this
And after beauty, after beauty in the shambles of the world there can only be true silence
In these pages and those others
In the voice of all things
In the longings of the heart at midnight and near it
In the songs that are attempted for its sake
Fourth Song
Morning Most beautiful and new Dancing on this the splendid earth Dancing on the cusp of history
Creation was never so beautiful as now The god who shaped this splendid earth also shapes my heart To respond and take a growing delight In the morning growing towards noon
Morning As if it was the Easter of the world As if all things found the truth of their names As if all things were alive and responding to every possibility
Was it always so? Was the world as beautiful as it is to me now Or is this joy, this dancing, glittering, glistening joy Specific to the day?
What does the answer matter when I can dance and sing And find that all things dance with me as I dance When all things sings of resurrection and life and the heart Ah the heart is both wild and calm
Yes, the cusp of history and all that this entails The cusp of morning rising towards noon and the heart And the eye delighting in all things And history comes and beds down in the tangible world
For moments such as this there should be a language Of praise and humility – one that opens to possibilities inherent In the world – one that opens itself to the joy of all things
Yes, a language of joy – one that straddles the everyday And the sacred – one that knows the perfect tense A language of verb, pure verb - such as is attempted here.
Nocturne
Walking from one garden to another
Walking from one room to another
To shatter illusion with hope –yes, this is always the intention and language resides there
The water beyond speaks of islands and the islands bespeak the dreams they carry
Stillness and silence –the lingua franca of the night
Blue and white –as Walcott says- the eternal colours of the sea
Blue and white –a flag in the wind and the wind coming from the language of the islands
What is it the soul embraces? What is it the soul rejects when it rejects nothing?
Language and song –I have nothing else here by this open door that faces onto the dawn that is rising but not yet here
So I walk in the garden and walk from one room to another
To compose a language that would embrace the language of night and the language of day –a lingua franca of the soul as it moves from garden to garden while dreaming of the islands
What is it the water is whispering to the islands?
What is it that the islands reply?
They also move in that landscape I cannot see but imagine to be everywhere
Imagine? No, I do not imagine it. That landscape is everywhere and pertinent
There is silence and light and somewhere a distant bell
Even the statues are moving
Orpheus Considers a Beloved Place
Water, water-hen, an ash tree casting itself in reflection, A bridge I have crossed A path meandering through the trees
All complex things have simple beginnings And nothing is more complex and simple Than this place is to me
I have found it to be the source of all language And the point at which language ends
I have found it to be the source of the world And the world can show no more beautiful place to me
Language and shadow –do not both extend from this place Towards that utterance which seeks to name and anoint And if it does not then it is not language But shadow shadowing itself with empty forms?
I have love this place and will sing it out loud I will have no other as my pool, my source I will sing the words that are given to me there And sing all things for its sake.
There is no other place where I might stand so drenched in light There is no other place.
Orpheus Considers A Certain Irish Poet
His meter –from the earth, from the air, and something in-between He sings in the first light of morning and in the last light of evening He sings both history and what resides outside of it
I love him and yet, and yet, sometimes it is not enough- No, it is not enough to say that you have missed the marvels Or flounder in the absence of the comets pulsing rose.
Orpheus Considers The Beauty Of A Rose
And considering it acknowledge that I Can find no more fitting symbol for the mind
It outlasts the season it grows in
It forms the inexpressible
It hones the mind when the mind contemplates The sepals and the core
Some beauty more than the beauty I see is active here
I can and cannot name part of its intention And what it has been in history Is something I also acknowledge
The one reflects the many The one is expressive of the whole There is a plurality in the rose that I can subscribe to When I can subscribe to no other
And who is the one that will equal it? Who is the one it speaks of?
It speaks but will not say It hints but will say no more than that And I am left in bewilderment
No, there is no more befitting symbol for the mind To lose itself in so as to find itself again
Only to lose once more what it has gained That it may gain some more.
Orpheus Dances By The Shore
And dancing celebrates what can only be celebrated By the dance As heel, toe touch and turn upon the earth they vivify
Is there more than this? Is there something else that can be attempted Or is all contained within the circle he forms?
O do not ask but watch as he Leaps the measured arc!
The Grace of Light
And now, here, this moonlight and shadow, You must believe me- All things bespeak the grace of light
The calligraphy of shadows bespeak the grace of light The density of water reflects the grace of light And the landscape of love is saturated with it
Yes, a grace, visible affirmation of what song reaches for And the poem delights in when uttered and anointed
The grace of light – everything I reach for in whatever season The touch-stone by which all things are known As here under moonlight and the multiplicity of stars I sing and sing and sing and sing for the given grace of light
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