FANA

I



Cool dark waftings, just slightly moist,

slow movements of air hovering

in the clear black spaces

between the upper rafters inside the cathedral.

Serenity of the tomb; the dead.

Cold stone buttresses.

Limestone arches hidden behind

the heads of pillars in the wings.

At the heart of the cross,

at its very center, its altar,

the atmosphere is pierced

by the breath of angels.

Celestial glow.

Stone floor made radiant

by sunlight filtering through

the stained glass cupola above

and floating down slowly,

                     slowly,

slowly on the backs of sifting dust,

the minutae kicked here and there

by Brownian movement, randomly,

settling, ashen.  Shed moth wing scales.

Finally to illuminate the polished marble floor

in a circle of sacred light,

edges fuzzy and fading

to silent shadow along the stone molding

in the corners.

But the circle,

the light,

has cracked the roof of the sepulcher in spring,

laid open the vault door,

and let in the scent of lilacs,

and the rustling of new leaves

fresh in the warming breeze.

It is a smile.

A beat of the Divine Heart.

Mind and Hope.

II

Behind, from below comes the sound of a horn

reverberating along the tiled walls,

a cacophony of shuffles,

foot falls, following after

my steady trudge after

all the others have faded away

down the corridor.

I am alone with the whispering ghosts of melody,

the thoughts of a man playing a horn

alone.

                                           Saxophone,

baby's wail, child's singsong,

lovers' moans and orgasms,

souls of urban men and women.

Soul of a black Heart.

Sound disembodied

as if the man had grasped

the spark of divinity and swallowed it,

inhaled it deep into his gut

and, with chakras swollen and blazing,

until his whole body and

soul were charged with its energy

and he could contain it no longer,

put horn to mouth and blew,

exhaled this power,

this transcendent smell of hallway piss,

taxis home at dawn,

spare change and turnstyles clicking,

muffled in the heated blast of

air-conditioner exhaust,

and suit after suit after suit

are stuffed in as doors slide closed.

Exhaled and gave all

for free.

I know him:

his thin, angular black face,

buffed, black leather skull cap,

small grey goatee

and horn perched like a brass bird

springing from his mouth.

Singing.

Tail grasped berween white teeth and

black lips.  Serene stance.  Singing reed.

The spirit of Africa hidden

in the simple mystery of what lies

behind his sunglasses, in his eyes.

He plays in the old style

with a quick, shallow vibrato.

But he really doesn't care much about style.

He doesn't have to.

He plays the tender standards,

the old standbys, the naturals.

But he plays them fresh,

he plays them new.

III

Stopping, bathed in sound,

I close my eyes

and still see the holy geometry

etched in the crimson light on the

insides of my eyelids, in a

stained glass mosaic of capillaries.

Corpuscles.  Small flashes of royal blue.

White and yellow.  Forest green.

The figures come to me:

kneeling in a garden by a rock

with lambs, robes and children,

a throng of illuminated faces looking over shoulders.

Translucent.  Radiant,

the low morning light fresh behind them,

shining, silent.

In silence, so swiftly dissipated like

the echo of a cough

or the grate of a shoe on concrete.

Decrescendo; diminuendo.

And finally, the dull click of the turnstyle

or the redundancy of the exit gate clacking closed.

Sterile sounds.

Alone with their echoes.

Only alone and no more.

Sometimes in the rush between stations

on the express,

in the pumping, urgent rhythms of the

shaman wheels, I can hear an

harmonica wailing.

Wailing the blur of steel I beams,

the rushing wall of forced air

at the tunnel's mouth.

The thin reed sound.  The Pan sound,

most fitting for this place

at this speed, stopping at this station.

I get off the train and as the roar recedes

the bare walled catacombs

are left in peace.

The Saints, beggared and in tatters,

plead quietly along the gutters.

The rest continue their pilgrimage,

heads bowed, humble, obedient.

And, eyes closed for a moment,

the light comes back;

the shield is buffed in the sun

on the steppes, where the wheat grows

golden and rippling.

The breeze cools my forehead

and tickles my eyelashes

while my own feeble steps

bring me higher and higher

closer to the open, to cloud,

to sky.

IV

The trains roar below

one after another, a

numbing rumble of mass.

Steel on steel.

Steel disks of wheels

screeching on the rails around

the turns.  Screaming.  Bellowing.

Twenty Third Street and Ely.  Union Square.

Howard Beach.  One Hundred and Twenty Fifth Street.

Watches, shirtsleeves, tense hands and

newspapers.

Minds wiped clean among the broken glass,

skulls crammed with the shifting light of a

television on the livingroom wall.

Mashed potatoes, roast chicken.

Boiled vegetables.

Uneasy pupae hurtling through

the blackness of the tunnel.

Taught cocoons.  Sensitive.

The dead are fallen on the platform,

the dying wander absently among the ruins,

the conductor mouths, the horn

blows three short blasts.

Bedford Avenue.  Smith and Ninth Streets.

Fourth Avenue.

Archways and rafters shatter,

splinter and fly apart.

Lofty spaces collapse,

fading with the whistle blasts

on the periphery, past my temples.

Cromwell's armored citizen army has

smashed the stained glass windows

of all the old churches,

and they have been replaced with plain clear glass.

Only dim fading memories remain.

Only visions vainly glimpsed at.

And finally, all alone again

with the sound of the horn,

the click of the turnstyles in the dim light,

in the corridor under the stained mosaic of cracked tiles:

False place names.  Tag.  Sign.

And me, alone,

one among the wiggling mass,

to worm my way out,

up into the fetid air

to where the wheat no longer grows

on the remains of where once

a cathedral had been;

and where once angels, wings folded down silken backs,

sang in tier upon tier,

and light touched and turned all to gold

there remains only a circle, sacred,

glowing on the station floor.