Another tilde now, but make it great,
and with some flare if you’ve a practiced pen.
This squiggle must have some sweet, special trait
that makes you look once, then look once again.
It is for one who never said a word
that was his own. Though in that slavery
his spirit shone still brightly, undeterred
by bondage, thanks be to his bravery.
He said so many things. And Tell me, friend,
if there is anything that you would say
if you could speak alone to your own end,
without your words being told to obey?
He never had that. You do. Let this sign
remind you not to give a practiced line.
Another wing now, but this one is not
the soft kind that you drew before. This one
is jagged, as if it were iron wrought,
draw not yarn-stitched but sharp and razor-spun.
He was indeed the gift of a sharp day–
the kind of grace that comes from, and draws, blood.
We should not hide the seraph’s cutting way:
a seed must first cut through a savage mud.
These wings did that. Cut through a savage air,
they gave in their wrought-iron pliancy
a space for some other kind of seed. Fare
for something new. Carved curtains for to see.
If function is his name, those who knew best
his countenance will tell you all the rest.