The War & The Red Bow in a Cloud on the Day of Rain

...The War For a time and times and half a time the woman was given wings to fly from the wilderness be nourished for a time clothed with the sun the woman was warm at night, the moon under her feet a neon of stars gleaming on her head When the flood that poured after the woman to sweep her away had failed every tribe and people and tongue and nation grew with the blood of her mortal wounds that healed and now those that live forever and ever who create wormwood and what is in it noise and what is in it listen to the seven thunders and what is sounded in them They wrap us in clouds rainbows over our heads The Red Bow in a Cloud on the Day of Rain Having fallen The wind having fallen I saw a cloud fall silently Having bronze and fire Having four shapes Each having wings having Calves' feet Having the face of a man in front Lion on right, ox on left Eagle in back I saw a wheel In a wheel beside them When they turned The wheels had spokes Had rims full of eyes Wings covered their bodies Wings like the sound of water A figure shone above the wings The crystal figure With loins gleaming bronze And I lay on my left side Forty days For the sins of my house And I baked bread on cattle dung And I shaved my head Burning a third of my hair in the city Striking a third with a sword Scattering a third in the wind Watching fathers eat sons Sons eat fathers And later watching my palsied hands Unwrap themselves from terror John Davis Commonweal 3 2 September 11, 1998...