Blind Oedipus
is old, death sits
at his side, its cold breath
on his hand. If you lean close,
you can hear him speak;
"Cursed with words, yet still
they are my eyes, and what I say
I see: old men
who put their sons on distant hills
to die, and calling it god's will,
those armies of the young are led
to think the enemy
is somewhere over there
and so are spared the messenger's
arrival with the news: the twisted root,
the lame foot—your father's legacy
to you, your mother dreaming
the king's dream, the oracle mouthing
his desires,
the rain dark
as we begin, like statues
made of earth, to melt back into mud,
eyes pouring water, faces streaked
and losing shape, returning to earth—
like the terra-cotta army
buried in the tomb
of the Emperor Qin, but this time
no beautiful figures to dig up,
no one to comment on the exquisite realism,
how each face is faithful
to its original, the way each costume
shows the rank, how the handsome horses
flank imperial pride—only
one common mud, earth closing
over its own eyes ...
we, who would give dumb matter
voice, and to inherent numbers
bring an intricate and abstract mirror, and span
the distance between stars with the silver
strands of mind, and link all difference
in the shimmering bridge
of imagery, and with blind molecules
grow eyes and hands t