Descry

by Pat Darnell


Dangling at the end
Of the food chain

Was a soldier.

Who lost his wife
His gun, his son,
And nearly his life.

When then he found a clarinet
That upon it had his name,
A honed woodwind,
primed him in
breathing easier,
until one day,
He wrestled a tree
Finally fell
His body went
To pieces, which
All the creatures ate.
A happy feast that day,
At heaven’s gate.

His soul escaped
Not devoured
In final hour

A hand reached out
To catch him,
Put the young soul on a cloud,
At about half past two,

The soul of the soldier
Said, “Thank you.”
The one with the hand
Told the soldier’s soul
his new name --

“Metronome.”

And the cloud’s address
is 12, a matchless home.


The clarinet re-toned
with scales of delightful scores,
Notes uniform, and impossible
For human ears to hone.
On that same day
Upon earth fell
Twins, borne ‘neath
A channel, in gale,
whereupon two games
Will be played.

Each would owe life
To the soldier’s demise
While shepherds
Pastured their sheep, ‘neath birds
In their freedom flight,
To the river to drink

Their blood is from
The river flowing
To the iodine sea
They fly above
the living pleasure
as rocking waves knead
the banks, fertile with seed

As naught has ever
Been seen froward
Nor in reverse, evinced
In famish, nor, glory ward,

Obscurity, nor lucidity,
Neither scheme, schism, nor worry,

Beheld the brilliance in life
as a dread vantage of rough
High-spirited games
Dangled by threads above gulf
Just below cloud twelve
Stirred at soldier’s end, just
A gnash ahead in the food chain.


1991