(a trifle)

Intellectus

A searchlight scanning in the chest
Of Galilee disturbed, the high winds swept
Up into hillocks of black water, and the moon obscured
With all the minor lights by heaven kept
Like swelling grapes, all red and bruised and pearled.
A searchlight arching from the heft
Of being thrown, and moving in its pools
Of heavy light upon the noh-mask of the sea.
It makes a portal in the world for sight.
And on the ocean-floor a splendor, disinterred;
Like Cappadocian cave-works, moled with prayer,
Sprawl empires of coral on the floor.
Like tenements at first, but then discovered for
Greaves, helms, spurs. An armory
Left relic of some carnage pre-diluvian.
The searchlight makes the coral seem like gems
Infused with sunlight for a moment once again,
Down there where fearsome angels swim
Defending all the ancient bodies of the slain.
The searchlight finds them too, like dolphins slim
But powerful, and coiled to the core
For one great action yet to come.
The searchlight is a Midas for Aurora’s house to bloom.
The searchlight is a herald of the almost woken Calm.