Alasdair Roberts The Flyting Of Grief And Joy (eternal Return)
It's eighteen years since the loud cicadas
Made us leave our imperilled shores
Such a ragged band of true Crusaders
To join or father in the War of Wars
We came at last to the field of battle
Near the waters of the endless Lethe (Leith)
We heard proud Joy make her sistrum rattle
Against the fearsome ranks of grief
And then spoke Joy most grievously
"Abandon hope and follow me"
Responded Grief so joyfully
"Abandon hope and follow me"
Meantime we'll see three forests rise and fall in mulch
and rind-rust
We'll see the woodsmen turn and fly and the Devil take
the hindmost
I'll call upon my inmost scorn to lay upon their babies
And you'll call on your opiate wand to lay upon their
ladies
And we'll see three cities form and rise and crumble
down to fine dust
We'll see the Burghers turn and fly and the Devil take
the hindmost
And half laid in chamberlye and abandoned in some gully
And half hung on the gallows high for folly and
vainglory
I'll stand in the fallen masonry and say my sermons
seven
For all the penitents in Hell and the celebrants in
Heaven
And you'll kneel in the crowded marketplace and draw
your vast Mandala
For Zoroaster and Mithras, Jehovah and for Allah
A tithe of skin, a toll of bone, a bloody libel burning
In Jericho and Babylon, eternally returning
Eternally returning, eternally returning
Eternally returning, eternally returning
Then Joy fell slowly out of focus
To meet with Grief in the Elysian Meres
From out her breast there grew a broken crocus
From Grief there grew a rosary of tears
They grew to form a swarm of hornets
They took the air and they swarmed as one
This one apported three fire-garnets
And sealed the rising of the unconquered sun.