“At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister”*
If I dressed somewhere between sackcloth
and silks, my mind might puzzle out
the fair to middling way
if I took the twisted stairs as guide
thoughts of the winding sheet
should not phase faith
nor prompt a last ditch clutch
at hollow rites of passage
If I could cease delight in dense drifts
of diversion, the spun blur of a top's rotation
each slippery slope where snakes are swayed
by charms - then reaching for the ladder
I would not turn to look below again
Ashes in the grate grow cold and slatey grey
this very day, hellfire is spent, past passion too
there is a dove, a doubt, a flame
a kind of kindling yet again
Lilian’s Turn, Turn, Turn prompt brought Eliot’s Ash Wednesday * to mind and in turn, his poem set these few lines in motion. [And its open link night on Thursdays at dVerse]
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