Three Predecessors

ADAM

And there I w as,
sitting there,
keeping to myself,
and then she came walking to me
and touched my ears and mind and mouth
and ran her hands through my hair
like a thresher, and even kissed me
before her whitearms pushed me away
into the dark garden again
which was no longer filled with my own sparks
of sitting and keeping to myself,
and I went out and said to my first god,
I am yours, truly,
and was kicked by that great boot,
and so lie here
and long for her mouth
and my own mouth
kissing the dust I had before.

NOAH

When the floods came
swirling like wet armor,
driving the world into the trees,
only I had a raft seaworthy;
only I knew the animals well enough-
their ways and their eyes
and the round thoughts
in their slanted skulls;
only I could lead them out.

They smelled my own skull
rotting, and followed.
They sniffed at my heart growing,
and came leaping after,
or crawled (those lesser creatures
such as slugs and sloths),
but all arrived in time,
antelope and centipede,
and the jackal
with the laugh scarring his sad face.
I was their leader
and their eyes looked up to me,
I who every night, alone in the straw,
circled my cage
and listened for the sound of a dove
coming back, or at least going forth,
but hearing only, as now,
a dark beast snoring above.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

My head beingseparated from my body,
staring there from the platter,
it is easy enough now to see
where I made my mi stake
through over-devotion to clouds or candles
and wind performing like a god
(a dust devil spinning in my brain ),
to study how I m i ght have combed my beard better,
used different perfumes,
or improved my haircut.
These things matter.

My eyes, still open,
are fatuous even in death
for I secretly loved the dancer
and wanted her head, soft in my hands,
and her body also in my hands
which could have preached more
than my desert-stained mouth.

I was called just and holy in my lifetime
but when the sword came down
my body rose in lust.
Observe it, daughter of water,
erect on its charger of dust.