When the earthquake shook the National Cathedral on August 23, this bat-like beastie was damaged by falling stone. He clearly isn’t thinking straight; jilted, he may yet lose his head.

THEODICY
(DRÓTTKVÆTT)

rote & firmly formal,
first among the versed, we
spake no revolt, spelt our
spensings sans offenses.
dare we spect how dear my
dignant lord rewards me?
knife-stook bashes neck, &
never! I vow [bowing].

The broke-necked gargoyle on August 26, shot from the parking lot with a zoom lens…

…and photographed intact last summer from the observation deck:

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Known as “the administrator,” this gargoyle hangs just to the side of the cathedral’s west façade and grips a miniature of the façade of the school he faces. After all this time, he argues in admirably good faith.

FAÇADE

Behold the form: We found our faith in spires.
From balustrade to buttress, by design
We build upon the base of our desires.
The ape of human order we divine,
And carved creation lightly gives us praise.
On day and eve, proportion we impose:
The perfect sun sets perfectly ablaze
A thousand perfect petals on the rose;
An arch constrains the brunt of outward pride.
One hymn we hue: “Ennobling words are dear
In thee, all sacramental modes preside
In thee”
       as from the fading close I hear
a thing to tempt us out of rite and rhyme,
       a sole cicada singing out of time.

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Sometimes a tiger mother makes more sound than sense, but obscurity is useful: It forces you to ask, “Will I understand this when I’m older, or is this nonsense?”

ST. JOHN’S EVE
(MIDSUMMER SONG)

When leaves that leach from every tree
Like bitten insects blight and curl,
The swollen moon may let you see
  But once a goblin girl.

Be quick: The brindled moths detest
To stir the brack and shallow air
Of seeping June, where scinnhiws nest,
  Yet you will find her there.

Their sodden boughs admit no strand
Of summer-wasted moon to stream
But one, but she must make her stand
  Within her sallow beam.

She snuffs the muck, but scarcely finds
The spoor of misremembered things,
As “Love, O careless Love, my mind’s
   Not right,” she sifts, she sings,

She scents, she turns—her eyes aflash
Like stars above a harrowed field
That starve their spark in cosmic ash,
  Eternity revealed

In silver curls, inflamed with sweat,
In reckless lilies, late awoke;
Their withring stems she stoops to let
  Enwreathe her, lest she choke,

While through the gloom, she stalks the word
That calls the rake of summer rain.
As some slight boy who nursed a bird
  But set her wing in vain,

She raises high her plunder fair,
She offers up a secret thing,
She grounds her glyph in graceless air,
  While wild around you ring

The beadling eyes that light abide
To see the perfect rind unfold,
To gnaw the hidden fast inside
  That goblins long to hold—

Her eyes will rise; you cast yours down.
Before her sneer, betray no guile.
And to her grin, extend a frown;
  In this, you whet her wile.

And if she riddles, answer straight;
And to her white, you echo black;
But when she fangs, embrace your fate,
  And her, and bite her back.

Then run, as you must always run,
And learn what you will never learn,
And goblin glances roundly shun;
  But let the memory burn.

Beyond the bramble, timbers blaze,
So join us as we rouse with song
The lazing dawn, and know our days
  Will never be this long.

Let seven into fathoms fall,
Let three around the wake-fire whirl,
And let your summer scant recall
  But once a goblin girl.

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CANTERBURY BELLS
(GOOD FRIDAY)

Campanula may bow; they dare not bend,
Though shafts of sun seem ever more remote.
I do not think the rain will ever end.

You breed prosodic lilacs and pretend:
“The drocts of April / pairst us to the rote;
Campanula may bow / they dare not bend,”

But poems (even this one) condescend;
You still need your umbrella and your coat.
I do not think the rain will ever end.

“I’ll drown my books!” you cry. (Yes: God forfend
Your graveside vigil lack some pithy quote.)
“Campanula may bow; they dare not bend—”

It comes out wrong. But what did you intend?
You plucked your eyes for pearls, and dimly wrote:
“I do not think the reign will ever end.”

Oremus: What can sodden bells portend
When even you misdoubt one hopeful note?
Campanula may bow; they dare not bend.
I do not think the rain will ever end.

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If you’ve ever owned a hamster, then you know how easily these creatures succumb to ontological and epistemological crises, especially when they look in a mirror. In this case, the mirror is Walters 71.170, a medieval artifact that also repays human scrutiny.

A HAMSTER CONSIDERS AN IVORY MIRROR COVER FROM MEDIEVAL FRANCE

Is this the wheel rabbanim learn
In serifed murmurs to discern
How beasts on every fourthwise spoke
Revolve by fours, but do not turn?

Is this the wheel the brahmin broke
When, himmel-eyed, she dared invoke
Her patient, wisdomed groom, then beamed
To bow her head for Roman stroke?

Is this the wheel a consul schemed
To wreathe with kaisers crudely dreamed
Who whirled their luckless lots away,
Yet leave one lady long esteemed?

Is this wheel the suras say
Was made of silver, not of clay,
And spelt like ash across the sky
To lift a grazing flock to pray?

Four beasts about the border fly;
Within, the aging never die.
For wheels in wheels I long to burn,
But which, the beast, the blest, am I?

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