Where the Heaven Sped Out
Where the Heaven Sped Out
By Joshua Chalifour
The soundless ball is falling
and kingdoms of men foreground
the Earth, moving upon
a posture of utter arrogance.
Bound by fear,
a glaring night's
upright heroes check
the brave conquest of the
outer circle-stage,
wider now through
the bulging footlights.
Observe upwards,
faint through goggles,
our valiant's new ramblings
(in loops of parabolic callowness)
was the only braved unknown
and us, the excursion's reverse.
To be nothing
and one, when such a
predicament of our hell
trumpets to comprehension
pearlfishers can find
remoter splendor.
We call to the stratospheric vastures
and the deepsea dead, cling to
the terrible nadir,
these outgrown ways are
dependent on it.
To locate in fear,
a course for absurdity.
Our seekers with the wings
sounded the range to its new sides,
limned grotesquely by right angles.
Now horses of the finity,
at once groping, more
fearful that the Earth grow
canopied with darkness,
out-thrust will beyond the true.
In our geometaphysics, whose
elusive but godbearing gravity
founded home,
everywhere is alive.
Geometaphysics
By Margaret Avison 1
1 Margaret Avison, “Geometaphysics,” Poetry Magazine (Poetry Magazine, September 1947), https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/24801/geometaphysics.
The earth was once a circle-stage
Founded upon the kingdoms of dead heroes
And canopied with splendor.
Horses of terrible arrogance sped night's
Remoter ways godbearing. Trumpets sounded,
Faint beyond comprehension in the wings,
And men alive
Braved it out upright in a frearful foreground
Limned by the glaring footlights of the unknown.
Now earth, a bulging ball,
Loops through the parabolic vastures
Of soundless finity. And to its sides
(right-angles everywhere)
We, moving out-thrust, cling,
Bound by such posture to absurdity.
Our fear now is the fear of falling upwards,
Our conquest, stratospheric ramblings
With nothing to observe through deepsea goggles,
Pearlfishers in reverse, grotesquely groping,
Dependent on our gravity to check
The valiant's course at the excursion's nadir.
The callowness of our predicament
Will be outgrown when one of us can find
Where to locate new heaven and new hell,
These that grow more elusive
The wider seekers range,
But are the true home only for the brave
Whose call is to the outer utter darkness.