JOHN, oh John,
Thou honourable
bird
Sun-peering
eagle.
Taking a bird’s-eye view
Even of Calvary and
Resurrection
Not to
speak of Babylon’s whoredom.
High over the mild effulgence of the
dove
Hung all the
time, did we but know it, the all-knowing
shadow
Of John’s
great gold-barred eagle.
John knew all about it
Even the very
beginning.
“In the beginning was the
Word
And the Word
was God
And the Word
was with God.”
Having been to school
John knew the whole
proposition.
As for
innocent Jesus
He
was one of Nature’s phenomena, no doubt.
Oh that mind-soaring eagle of an
Evangelist
Staring
creation out of countenance
And telling it off
As an eagle staring down on the
Sun!
The Logos, the Logos!
“In the beginning was the
Word.”
Is there not a great Mind
pre-ordaining?
Does
not a supreme Intellect ideally procreate the Universe?
Is not each soul a vivid
thought in the great consciousness
stream of
God?
Put salt on his tail
The sly bird of
John.
Proud intellect, high-soaring
Mind
Like a king
eagle, bird of the most High, sweeping the
round
of heaven
And
casting the cycles of creation
On two wings, like a pair of
compasses;
Jesus’
pale and lambent dove, cooing in the lower boughs
On
sufferance.
In the beginning was the Word, of
course.
And the word
was the first offspring of the almighty Johannine
mind,
Chick of the
intellectual eagle.
Yet put salt on the tail of the
Johannine bird
Put
salt on its tail
John’s eagle.
Shoo it down out of the
empyrean
Of the
all-seeing, all-fore-ordaining ideal.
Make it roost on bird-spattered, rocky
Patmos
And let it
moult there, among the stones of the bitter
sea.
For the almighty eagle of the
fore-ordaining Mind
Is looking rather shabby and island-bound these days:
Moulting, and rather naked
about the rump, and down in
the beak,
Rather dirty, on dung-whitened
Patmos.
From which we are led to
assume
That the old
bird is weary, and almost willing
That a new chick should chip the extensive
shell
Of the mundane
egg.
The poor old golden eagle of the
creative spirit
Moulting and moping and waiting, willing at last
For the fire to burn it up,
feathers and all
So
that a new conception of the beginning and end
Can rise from the
ashes.
Ah Phoenix, Phoenix
John’s Eagle!
You are only known to us now as
the badge of an insurance
Company.
Phoenix, Phoenix
The nest is in
flames
Feathers are
singeing.
Ash
flutters flocculent, like down on a blue, wan
fledgeling.
San Gervasio.