[MacArthur]

(The one time I tried to write a trimeter-- something call "Travel Poem"-- was after reading this, and "Night Journey" by Roethke.
I think the lines are a little too end-stopped-- but that may work with the devotional purpose.
I like Dickey's comments above-- I like the poem. My own copy is in a career collection. Dickey edited the Robinson collection in the same series, and wrote a nice appreciation of Robinson.
I've vaguely heard some stories about Dickey as a human being. I think it's too bad...but then, the world's full of people like that, who don't write poems.)

Sleeping Out at Easter

All dark is now no more.
The forest is drawing a light.
All presences change into trees.
One eye opens slowly without me.
My sight is the same as the sun’s,
For this is the grave of the king,
When the earth turns, waking a choir.
All dark is now no more.

Birds speak, their voices beyond them.
A light has told them their song.
My animal eyes become human
As the Word rises out of the darkness
As my right hand, buried beneath me,
Hoveringly tingles, with grasping
The source of all song at the root.
Birds speak, their voices beyond them.

Put down those seeds in your hand.
These trees have not yet been planted.
A light should come round the world,
Yet my army blanket is dark,
That shall sparkle with dew in the sun.
My magical sheperd’s cloak
Is not yet alive on my flesh.
Put down those seeds in your hand.

In your palm is the secret of waking.
Unclasp your purple-nailed fingers
And the woods and the sunlight together
Shall spring, and make good the world.
The sounds in the air shall find bodies,
And a feather shall drift from the pine-top
You shall feel, with your long-buried hand.
In your palm is the secret of waking.

For the king’s grave turns him to light.
A woman shall look through the window
And see me here, huddled and blazing.
My child, mouth open, still sleeping,
Hears the song in the egg of a bird.
The sun shall have told him that song
Of a feather returning from darkness,
For the king’s grave turns him to light.

All dark is now no more.
Birds speak, their voices beyond them.
Put down those seeds in your hand.
In your palm is the secret of waking.
The sun shall have told you this song,
For this is the grave of the king;
For the king’s grave turns him to light.

James Dickey



[This message has been edited by MacArthur (edited August 20, 2001).]