186 - Denouement

Denouement
By Beatrice Page

I

May the portent of its coming
be a grave calm?
Like the hush that holds the world spell-bound
before a summer storm: under a sky grown dark, foreboding,
birds fall silent, no leaf stirs.
Then...

Shock! The onslaught:
a precipitate wind out of nowhere
makes a headlong dash through trees,
sweeping fields to a slant;
coruscating lightning blinds the eyes
and thunder bursts against the eardrums
as the deluge falls.

Dumbstruck, you look for angels
to come racing out of the woods
with flaming swords announcing doom, while
fiery chariots tear across the heavens
splitting the clouds apart. You wait for the sun to crash,
consuming earth in a final conflagration.
And that will be the end.
Nothing left but a dying wind
fanning the ashes of the planet
in primordial night.
Unless...

Amazingly a blue grotto opens
in the deadened sky and light pours through.
The air grows fresh. The trees unfold
and bow to a feathery breeze
as if ready to dance a graceful pavane.
One bird, two birds, a chorus of birds
sing praise, sing joy.
You breathe again!

May it be like that?

Beatrice Page is a former professional dancer turned writer. She has had one novel published and is at work on two others. She lives on Cape Cod. Another of her poems appeared in the January, 1989, issue of THEOLOGY TODAY.

187 - Denouement

II

Or may it come like the barely perceptible sigh
of a late September day easing into
a change of season? A wistful mood,
a regret for time lost or forgotten
or dimly remembered from long ago?
Then, like the gradual heightening of autumn color,
intensifying to poignant longing
for something never known, beyond knowing;
becoming a profound sadness
paradoxically felt as joy.
Until...

Like October's ultimate extravagance
of red and gold blazing across the landscape,
hanging tongues of fire on every tree and bush,
such a blinding splendor meets your inward gaze
that a cry is kindled in the heart:
Glory! Glory! Glory!
But then...

Is there a fading and a falling,
as with autumn leaves?
A slow burning out
down to the last spark?
Before the dark?

May it be like that?

188 - Denouement

III

Or may it come like an icy wind
squeezing into the house under a door
one winter night? A cold breath
brushing your skin, creeping into your bones,
penetrating marrow, numbing the brain,
and finally gripping the heart as if
some polar bird of prey had lain in wait
to clutch its victim with sharp claws
and watch it freeze in panic and in pain.
Unless...

It may come tenderly instead,
like falling snow in windless dark
as you lie drowsily imagining
flakes pelting softly, softly
on your closed eyes, spreading
a downy coverlet over your body,
burying you deep, deep
into never-ending dreamless sleep.
Yet...

What if you are taken unawares by dreams which
bear you into realms of echoes and reflections
sometimes pleasing, sometimes fearful or bizarre?
Will you stir eventually, shake off
the shadows, grow wide awake, and know
the difference between
reality and phantom scene?

May it be like that?

189 - Denouement

IV

Or may the intimation of its coming
be tenuous as whiff
of thawing leafmold in early spring,
borne on breath of air so evanescent
it might have been set in motion
by a swallow's wing?
But soon...

April's green tide spreads over the ground,
its green surf floods the trees,
gold and purple crocuses come out of hiding,
forsythia and daffodils
abstract yellow from the sun,
returning birds unlock their throats and let songs out.

So much juice and jubilance! As if
every grass root, every naked tree,
every flower cloistered in its seed,
every silent bird had been waiting to respond
to some mysterious decree!

Will a quickening take us also by surprise,
I wonder? Followed by a shock of awe and wordless joy,
as if stiff bonds had burst asunder
and scales had fallen from our eyes?
And then...

Shall we at last, astounded, see
who we were really meant to be?

May it be like that?