Verse:
Porter, Anne
Fire Fire, most beautiful of flowers. Whose only perfume is brightness. You have no season, and you bloom On the highest of high altars And under the vagrant's pot. Through centuries on centuries...
...2. Chosen from the chosen Mystical rose Your creature petals Mirror that beauty No one can see and live You hide in your heart Like dew simple and silent That blazing majesty...
...The sky was set aflame over Mount Alverna Shining into the windows of the inns For miles around So that the muleteers woke and saddled and loaded their beasts And thinking it was dawn Continued on their journey towards Romagna...
...Cireat webs of stillness over the Kast River...
...And after that, they saw the real sun rising...
...Only when they had gone some distance did the night come back...
...3. Star of morning There is still such darkness Only by the light Of your innocent fire We know this is the morning...
...On our way home, passing the loeked-up shops We saw one window heaped with tarnished lamps...
...Even when night had fallen There lingered a long band of smoldering dark glory Over the far horizon hedged with soot-black trees...
...that he is close at hand Who lets himself be gathered To be our wine and bread...
...Guitars and radios and dusty furs...
...Young country girl From a scorned province Broken for the broken Wife of a carpenter Mother of a convict Cause of our joy...
...Come to the old woman Whose lodging is the street Come to the drugged boy The landlord, the general Come to the hunted hunter by his jungle river Come to the banker, the prisoner, the torturer The hungry, the shut-in, the runaway in danger Come to the backward child...
...POEMS by Anne Porter Red Sky at Night At about five o'clock in the evening on the 7th of December There was at first an ordinary sunset, But after sundown there bled into the sky Such an immense flood of dusky red-gold fire That every house, barn, shed, tree, twig and blade of grass And every worker bound for home Was drenched in it and glowing...
...Wartime Sunday In honor of Eugene Atget, photographer of Paris...
...They say it was something like that on one September night When the six-winged Seraph Printed the little poor man with the wounds of Christ...
...First Avenue empty and gray, So we turned a corner to stare at the three bridges...
...But sweet in this dark morning Is a freshness of new bread And the newborn Word in his cradle Is just beginning to stir...
...Queen of Angels You're up early Washing, baking, sweeping...
...The Vendanger Because it blooms exactly at the season When grapes are ripe lor wine, In France this small while aster Is called the harvester...
...Fragrance of hope...
...Through centuries on centuries Like Christ you are everywhere, To kindle the half cigarettes Which the homeless find in the gutters, And the tall paschal candle...
...And there among them a pawned christening-dress White as a waterfall...
...Small as you are, your fragrance Fills all the world...
...Cause of Our Joy 1. Rock crystal Clearer than crystal Stronger than rock Snow-crown of Sinai Melting on the heights Pouring through the valleys In pure rushing water And wine that sings of justice...
...Mixing our fearful sorrows with his own Till they are happiness...
...The vomit of Saturday night was wet in the doorways, No one was up...
...From the time of a long-ago war that destroyed only far-away cities I remember a Sunday walk with the littlest of our sons...
...Fragrance of the gospels...
...And now from every casual patch of weeds And all along the roads' rough borders Its thronging delicate Dusty constellations Call out to us...
...Whether or not we know you Come to rich and poor Come to us all...
Vol. 110 • November 1983 • No. 20
