PERIAMALAI
ERIC THACKER
Regiments
of cloud still
And
low relate near to far for
The
eye which watches across
Broad
floodwater the slow
Phases of autumnal light.
Southward
the hills are grey
With reconnoitring rain.
Soon
at the dark fortnight’s end
Deepavali lamps will be
lighted
At the porch of a wild season.
Westward
those lower hills–
Isolated
geological upstarts–
Are
sanctified by shafts
Of uncovenanted light.
Toward
and away the soldierly
Palmyras march.
Lop-eared lambs
Bleat
in the damp fields.
Soon
the rains will come, and
Wildly. Already this has been
A
rainy year, but even so
The
winds are stirring for
Karthigai Deepam and the full-
Moon
of Siva’s triumph;
And
the rains will bring their
Thumping
fury, loosening
Half-hearted
roots for
The
tearing gales that will lay low
So many proud trees.
Grief of sky. Blood falls,
A
dark invitation,
Seminal
of faith
And
prayer, a seeking out
Of
soils beneath
Uprooted
rock and carven cross,
Under
the assassin’s shrewd
Thrust,
under the doming,
Kite-hoisting
seawinds of Coromandel
On
the tumbled top of Periamalai
The
blood falls, in-searching,
Upward-urging,
but to stimulate
What
shoots?
Thomas’s
stony cross
But
bodies forth the age-old crucifixion
Of the earth on iron bone….
And
to stone or soil
It
will all be the same.
The
lorn and lordly Lamb subsumes
All
immolations
Note: Periamalai, otherwise known as