Endpoint

Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle

The celebrated windows flamed with light

directly pouring north across the Seine;

we rustled into place. Then violins

vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms,

seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness,

bit by bit, the vigor from the red,

the blazing blue, so that the listening eye

saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes

of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held

the holy glowing fantasy together.

The music surged; the glow became a milk,

a whisper to the eye, a glimmer ebbed

until our beating hearts, our violins

were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead.

+ JOHN UPDIKE

Endpoint and Other Poems
Alfred A. Knopf

from Poetry Daily

Renga # 28 = 0 (boo!)

Poem # 1

have you been carrying that mirror long?

because you are not here i have been

scheming. the scale surges before us, is wide

and so very often drafty. remind me

of vertigo's trusty cures.

(was it the feet missing a safe perch

or the eyes reeling earthward?)

but with my arm, crooked,under my head

i am snug and parallel to the ground

and yes, i have been waiting

PS Eliot