Being born in that land
And having lived there for many years
He knows how to converse
With old keepers of the gates of wisdom
Perhaps better than the natives themselves!
(But that is uncertain
Since he has never come face to face
In the land of the departed giants he adores
With one exciting living mind!)
In all his years there, too
Even as a young boy,
He showed his respect
By being completely honest with the natives
Never pretending to emulate them.
Though somewhat restrained
In terms of role models
He stayed loyal to the example of the decent man
He knew well
The only white man in town
To be exact, his own father.
He has, of course, maintained peaceful relations
All the way through
With the quietest, and most shadowy of the natives.
They still populate his thoughts and dreams
And will perhaps do so for as long as he lives
With their small unrecognizable figures
And slanted eyes
Always in groups…and never saying much.
Invited from campus to campus
He now lectures
About the world’s great “wisdom traditions”
Looking wise, and somewhat shaken by age.
People shout their stories of his selfless devotion
to learning
So he can hear them well
And feel convinced of their own devotion
As they talk about his
Dinners in his honor go on for some time.
The Dinner has just ended
Empty glasses and cups,
Tired faces,
Late night smiles retreating into sparkless eyes
Politeness wearing thin.
He looks old, pale and unconvinced
As I say goodbye to slip out quietly.
Out in the night’s cool air
Where rain drops have been busy in my absence
There is an unprecedented freshness
I am greeted by the warm, noisy, welcoming night
A wondrous longing to soar comes over me
And a desire
To expand and inhale the timeless dark.
I stretch out my arms
And open the palms to feel the mist
The urge to run takes over.
I get in the car and rush home
To my bookcase in the sitting room
Searching furiously on the shelf
For my old printed collection
of El Greco’s paintings:
“O El Greco! Where are you?”
“ I need your eyes!”
“ I need to remind myself of the way you see!”
“ The way you defeat smallness”
“The way you shout with pale quiet faces”
“And capture greatness in exaggerated fingers
and bony arms.”
“I feel blind-folded”
“ I feel locked in a box”
“Get me out of this entangled web of smallness ”
“O El Greco! Please be found!”
I find the collection of paintings
And rush to the tall half-covered figure of John the Baptist
Standing on a pair of extraordinary legs
Holding to a long wooden cross
With over stretched fingers
That ought to look funny but do not.
And immediately on the next page
“Christ bearing the Cross”
His upright figure looming large in the
center of the painting
His hands exaggerated way beyond proportion
His broad shoulders covered in a majestic red robe
His large brown eyes fixed on something outside the painting
Not far from where I sit
I gently bring my hands down
And put them on the painting
To trace with the tip of my fingers
the blood dripping on his ivory pale face
And feel
The reassuring warmth
Of the love that gives
And seeks no approval
The mighty river that washes over aloof mountain tops
And my small figure, too.
Tears roll down my face with relief
My blind-fold coming undone
My hands moving across his pierced forehead
To his eyes unconcerned with my gratitude
His body spread across the page
Filling the horizon from end to end
O El Greco! El Greco
How can I thank you?
October 2nd, 2000, St. Louis
