MIRACLES

by: Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)

      WILIGHT is spacious, near things in it seem far,
      And distant things seem near.
      Now in the green west hangs a yellow star.
      And now across old waters you may hear
      The profound gloom of bells among still trees,
      Like a rolling of huge boulders beneath seas.
       
      Silent as though in evening contemplation
      Weaves the bat under the gathering stars.
      Silent as dew, we seek new incarnation,
      Meditate new avatars.
      In a clear dusk like this
      Mary climbed up the hill to seek her son,
      To lower him down from the cross, and kiss
      The mauve wounds, every one.
       
      Men with wings
      In the dusk walked softly after her.
      She did not see them, but may have felt
      The winnowed air around her stir;
      She did not see them, but may have known
      Why her son's body was light as a little stone.
      She may have guessed that other hands were there
      Moving the watchful air.
       
      Now, unless persuaded by searching music
      Which suddenly opens the portals of the mind,
      We guess no angels,
      And are contented to be blind.
      Let us blow silver horns in the twilight,
      And lift our hearts to the yellow star in the green,
      To find perhaps, if, while the dew is rising,
      Clear things may not be seen.

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