Mystic River

Backwards sliding, how do you do?

How can the mountains see us through

when solid stone, seeker’s rock, passing cues

and appalling flocks cast the glimpse, ease the pews

down into mystic waters dyed with rue,

how into pistled mortals I come unglued.

Casting no shadow, it seems to me,

is the path of the immortal, the holy see

no newness, no corridor, no body

in the pitchness of black, the germinating.

So call me in, hallowed sound:

electrifying the blood,

casting the proud.

The lake will do neither in this nor the next;

the sun still shines in infernal firmament.