The Echoes, A Poem
the Echoes came to him again
on that quiet night of promise, where.
grey tendrils of dissolving cloud
embraced a pale half-moon,
where
a wolf’s long wavering call
rose low from the earth,
where
a sudden rustle in the silvered grass
and a quick wing in the fading distance
told their story.
Those close natural sounds eased
his thudding heart,
controlled for flash-moments
the rushing fear and joy that
washed over him from the Echoes
in the dark places beneath.
Always the Echoes came at night
always they came from the moist earth
always their cosmic sound rang massively,
an inverted brass bell as huge as a mountain
that trapped every sound it ever made,
releasing some to haunt him . . . only him--
the Channel.
Only he heard the Echoes,
only he knew their powers to
set aside the veil.
So there, on a high hill
above the dark forest,
he spread his arms and
closed his eyes and
let the sweet close sounds of
that quiet night of promise
envelop him like flowing honey.
He smiled now, calm
as the Echoes entered,
taught him in the shelter of
the bell to become
the music of the bell.
The music of the bell
will sustain our hopes and
keep the poets at their pens and
the lovers at their lips and
the tyrants at their tanks.
Until he helps the Echoes
teach us
how to hear
the secrets we already know
but do not yet
understand.
© robert cook
