Eric Pankey

[from Eric Pankey's Reliquaries, Ausable, 2005]

Passage

What I caught out of the corner of my eye might have been a vision,
       had I been a visionary.
In my idleness, I imagine the universe the size of a thimble, the whole
       condensed, a drop of dew,
A plasma so packed that nothing escapes, no heat, no light. It is cool
       to the touch.
Poured into my palm, it rolls about like mercury, but will not divide.
       Had I been a visionary,
I might have caught out of the corner of my eye the invention of time
       and its backdraft.

*

Nothing is lost, we are asked to believe, not the three horses that
       came to the fence for apples,
The Appaloosa, the sorrel, and the chestnut, that came freely and fed
       from our hands;
Not the delirious flight of the bottle-rocket that set the bramble
       hedge ablaze;
Not the hand drawn back to strike but then held motionless as if by
       an angel, as if by mercy;
Not the half life of the half-life of the half-life of the half-life graphed
       as an involuting spiral.

*

I stepped out of the fabric of time, but only for a moment, for a
       minute or two.
I stepped out of the fabric of time and my foot slipped on the last
       rung of the scala mystica.
On my way down, I forgot the cause, the form, the matter, and at last,
       the sphere of elements.
I had to relearn the names of the nettle, the thistle, the fire thorn and
       the bindweed.
I had to relearn to climb. To put one hand on a rung, then one foot . . .

*

Although it is midwinter, a housefly arisen, it seems, from nowhere,
       settles then dashes,
Ricochets off the window glass, retries, then rests on the sill, only to
       recommence.
In my idleness, I imagine the universe the size of a thimble, the whole
       condensed, a drop of dew.
In my idleness, I imagine the fly might one day discover a way
       through the glass,
And the miracle will not be the other side, but the constancy, the
       liquid simplicity of the passage.

Reliquaries