Poetry Archives

“The trumpet is a brilliant instrument.”—Dietrich Buxtehude


Come and come forth and come up from the cup of
Your dumbness, stunned and numb, come with
The statues and believed in,
Thinking this is nothing, deceived.

        Come to the summer and sun,
        Come see upon that height, and that sum
        In the seedtime of the winter’s absolute,
        How yearly the phoenix inhabits the fruit.
        Behold, above all, how the tall ball
        Called the body is but a drum, but a bell
        Summoning the soul
        To rise from the catacomb of sleep and fear
        To the blaze and death of summer,

Rising from the lithe forms of the pure
Furs of the rising flames, slender and supple,
Which are the consummation of the blaze of fall and of all.