The Pilgrimage, Book II / Phillip Neal Tippin
Part 16
Eat of the garden varieties
From their season of ecstasy
Infants of eternity
Born in death quite young,
Maybe some
Have picked up a word or two
For a new tongue
When its spokes are unsprung.
Writing is what I’d say
With its makeup on.
Meaning slurred into the meter,
Convinced by the hook that
Compromise for a diminished
Seventh is absolute, requisite.
The smell of the world
Making sense.
Part 17
The pilgrim’s
Return journey
A slow walk Home
Upon the same Way.
Loathe to throw
Anyone
Into turmoil
Called before
The great receiving
(Eucharist)
My weak mercy,
Your strong mercy
Bore by obedience
The stillborns
Still bearing
Newborns
Part 18
Lord, help me embark
On the great foregoing.
(Luke 16:1-17)
The upward movement
Is lateral.
The sacrament of Sunday,
In its unveiling of the Eighth.
The images lost
In the myriad frames.
Almost no other weather
Drifts into dreams like snow,
A latent desire dusted
On drowsy winter fields,
And, when on hope’s predilection
It blows, fills up all my hollows.
Part 19
The contemplation of You
In Action
Would look like obedience.
Our consolation:
It is better to imagine home
Than estrangement
Which is fear.
The law and the prophets
Discussed with Him His departure,
Which He accomplished.
(Transfiguration Sunday)
The ease of severance
The difficulty of temperance
The condescension of Christ to become
The circumcision of the world.
The Word of a Poet
Part 20
He kisses the head
Of the cries and demands
(The little inquisitor)
The Mystery is in accurately
Seeing the real
Vermeer
Met some unrelenting walls
That would not move for words
The Benediction of
The only possible.
Safe in patience
Gratitude for a morning
When the heads of the trees
Are still, unsnapped.
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