Eve Considers the Possibility of Pardon
By John Engels
In one dream I am made watchful.
In this dream the name we never clearly have heard
is spoken, which name, if we knew
and could speak it, would call back to us
those whom in time we will have come to love
and who will die; would bring them back to us
like us abandoned again
to his terrible consequence,
the silence between us
forever affirmed. And in whatever
might constitute the pardon
would come down in a fragile rain
the whole matter of all
we will ever love, the whole
fiery blade of space, ten billions of suns
suddenly blossoming small and cool
as snowdrops over the opening graves,
the world shimmering with the blue
delicate membrane of the fallen sky,
while above us the forsaken voice calls out
come back come back
as if calling the name
each of us had long forgotten
until that very instant not remembered
as proper to our hearts.
Copyright Credit: John Engels, “Eve Considers the Possibility of Pardon” from House and Garden. Copyright © 2001. Used with the permission of the author and Notre Dame University Press.
Source: Weather-Fear: New and Selected Poems 1958-1982 (1983)