INNER / OUTER

 

 

 

I

 

In ninety-six, I read my Christmas books.

Pagels’ inference from Eve compares

Aurelius, depressed quite often, hooked

by duty, destiny, the grave affairs

of those fate calls to greatness, golden heirs

on a forced march downward to the tomb in tune

with Pomp and Circumstance – unlike the prayers

that broke the back of ancient logic, runes

enchanting to the poor, the doomed, and those rough-hewn

 

 

II

 

            by suffering, exulting in the soul’s

            equality and everlasting life.

            And Gordimer’s heroes, longing to be whole

            and crossed by history, must grope through its strife

            for balance in a crooked world, for a life

            of one’s own between the Dutchman and his victim.

            Someone I know became a priest and wife

            and scientist, resolving worlds of dictum

in herself; in Gordimer’s phrase, she lives through the skin.