In the Empire Of Night

In The Empire of Night: A Triptych in Verse


I

Wind cracks the ivory canvas sails as
The moon’s full cold flowing light freezes
My eyes and slides in brilliant pallor down
The triangled cloth. There suspended against
This colander sky the fabric glistens as I
Heave the wheel to hold the course. I stand
The lonely midnight watch and let the hypnotic
Whisper of the sheets beguile me.

Wing-spread, we run before the wind as
Gracefully the following sea lifts our stern,
Glowing with the effervescent blue of our
Wake. I feel the song of the wires humming
In my fingers as I bend to test the buckles.
Bright gee the thrum of the wire, leading me
To wonder at the tuning of our craft.

What chords do we sound in our quicksilver
Flight? Do leviathan creatures sing back in
Aquatic harmony? Is it the song of the our
Sailing which leads the dolphin to dance upon
Our prow and linger in the drone of the bow
Wave? The counterpoint makes the fugue.


II

This is the downhill run. The trade wind blows
A steady course and firms our bucking ride.
Seemingly the world is aslant and we slip down
This forever slope. Landless is the horizon,
Limitless the sea. I reach upward to touch the
Brilliant sky and am enchanted by the tales told
In the stellar sea above. Illumined by their
Stories, I read the portent of the milky runes.

If every journey’s voyage were so sweet, how
Common the sailor. If every journey’s voyage
So simple, no steamship would sail. Here the
Pace of our passage shifts the celerity in me
To a kinder steadiness. Dangling my fingers in
Passing--I test my strength upon the movement
Pushing, a monster’s hand invisible to my eyes.

I stretch myself wide to accept it. Taken in
All, it lessens me. Like a grain of sand in the
Desert, I look upwards as one of a multitude and
Sense the futility of human strife. My balloon
Heart swells, bursting my chest. Too strained
Is the lightness within this dreaming span.



III

In cage of bones, my brain strains to understand.
Grasping at smoke, I force what cannot be
Known to fit my rooted lore. The wisdom of the
Boat outpaces my insight’s poverty. I am the
Dispossessed, fleeing forward towards a future I
Cannot hold. Under this boundlessness I shiver.
This nocturnal kingdom marks its boundaries
Upon my soul. Saddening its sovereign ruler.

Naked within the enormity of the sky, I seek shelter.
Infiniteness is a power which sickens; too strong
Is the physic here employed. I seek delivery from
The purity I feel now. I am a god here and I see
That mortal man was not meant to hold this orb and
Wield this scepter’s care. Pass my brow with this
Crowning, I must take the abdicator’s evasion.

Standing in the cathedral of eternity, I grasp the
Measure of my limited self. I am but a man, my
Course takes me forward. I find in my breathing
That which I would keep. Immortality must wait
Its turn. Within this world I will learn to be an
Ordinary man; an emperor without a realm.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner