Three Voices at the Meridian

Noon, and its excellent sun, and you, old tree,
and here squat I, heraldic and sejant in sequined shadow,
and the same question asks us as before
which is the older? cat or tree? you or me?
These houses, with their hands before their eyes,
the shuttered houses, they are younger surely?
And the pale nuns who pace demurely
under the purple Judas bloom?
But which is the older, you or me?
And you, old tomb! freezing in the shadow, sweating in the sun!
tell us again which is the oldest of us three?
I walk and talk I walk and sleep
my own concerns and seasons keep
and, twilight come,
put on that evil that is second nature
to every living creature.

Nothing is older nothing is evil
thus to speak is to invite that devil
by man called conscience or else consciousness
in his unenviable and self-created doom
invented out of time and out of mind
that he might call himself mankind
and who knows why.
Better the acorn dropped for the dark-eyed squirrel to carry and bury
better the bitter berry
for the quail’s green crop
better the drop of wild honey or innocent rain
than this all-man-invented pain.

Latecomer that I am, old cat, old tree, old tomb,
yet grant me room. Ungainly I
the body awkward and unshod and shoddy
what mind indeed would choose such body
dropped from the bloody womb
and in filth come
the spirit shy?

count time and make it rhyme
and know the reasons
for your seasons.