Rocksteady by Ishion Hutchinson

Rocksteady

For these cramped fragments of Thomas,

           stir: ‘I had never loved England,’ and stir:

           ‘I had loved it foolishly,’ stir, transmuted:

           ‘like a slave, not having realized it was not mine.’

Ah, there, saint, captive, the sentinel is at the door,

            beating upon the bulwark of its silence.

            I, a late remnant in that still, unceasing circuit

            scaling down the dock, I am a mystery among faces, know

injustice and illusion, and laughter

           that is silver lashing, lashing the hummingbird

           in the breeze. I know something drastic is

           waiting release, some instrument to measure,

in one stroke, paradise, and when it strikes again,

           emptiness, the city gripped with emptiness.

It is happening, right here, as you see, in syntax;

          my circadian fortress is pitching me. Rocksteady. 

And because our enmity is strong and our love

          is strong, they bring us together, divided:

          fire into fire: first, sea; and of sea, cane;

          the lasting enmity, faithless and haunting.

The mass and strength of our love, the blades

          of our imagined empathy, our compassion,

          crossed from an abridged womb, the sea;

wind lifts the balance sheets of the dead, unbalanced;

          names are fluttering against the divided sun.

          I look up on what’s mine and not, nettled

          first in literature, now drained to a grey core:

‘the worlds whole sap is sunke,’ utterly dry.

          Progress at rest, resting of a vacant peace,

          after four centuries, laden with perish

and gain. Everywhere touched by the rain,

          ending, a ‘work that’s finished to our hands.’ Rocksteady.