Two Poems

I. 

Lecouvreur

Dramatic muse of whom the poet sang 
To Paris where his burning words condemned 
The cruelty of a public that would scant
No praise of her whose talents they consumed
But when, a husk, her final ember died  
Would throw her from the cemetery gates!
What soundness or consistency is there
In doctrine that rejects what it adored
And judges guilty whom it once enjoyed?
Who knew the one who told her tale before
The gathered heirs of they who damned her soul
Would face the fate alike of the portrayed 
And live to justify the poet’s rage?
Thus time may change the masks but not the face
Injustice and hypocrisy remain;
And they who loudest sang the muse’s praise
Still prove the ones to cast her to the wolves. 

II. 

Ursa Major 

Large bear, mother

Of us all

I just learned

Your tale

And how you were 

Pursued and speared

Then, guiltless,

Spied, and belly-full, you were 

Bewitched and banished for

Another’s crime

And given fur.

Yet still 

For all this wrong

You

Keep watch on

Us, the sons,

Of him who hurt;

The only star 

That never leaves

When others sleep

Still, you keep 

Your vigil

All-forgiving;

I guess they say

He pity took

Or, out of shame,

Cast you above

So he might look

Upon his everlasting stain;

Is this

The only sense

In which 

The ancient

Lies lied not—

When,

That is, they spoke

Of man’s first sin?

And this 

The lone,

Sole sense in which 

Someone

In any way atoned?

Male, cruel, seed spent, he

Guilt-wracked, beheld

You there, beneath 

And knew

The world would strew—

(For his crime, but 

Exacted from you)—

Your bridal wreath—

Another Gretchen’s shade—

And so he made

Of you a form above

To remind us of

An undeservèd love,

And pivot you remain

The center of our life

The pole-gored

Core 

Of cosmic revolutions;

Was it strange—

A strain perhaps of mad

Male viciousness in ancient

Minds

That made the pole

Of our whole world

The starry sign

Of what you suffered? 

Or was it wisdom

Saying something ageless—that

Here is found,

In unredeemed

Unmitigated suffering

All the truth

Of what we are

Or ever will become

But also still

The hope enshrined

In your forgiving gaze;

For you who’d have

The greatest right

To blink away, 

Into eternal night,

Still shine on with

Your pity’s light.

So we, mankind,

Should bear our burden still

As you, bear, bore, 

And forbore your just

Penance to exact; 

May we learn

To pity where

Our fathers did not stoop to spare

Like you, great bear,

And spear not,

That you may fear not;

So we may merit

The reasons you bear it.