Читать книгу Apples from Shinar - Hyam Plutzik - Страница 21

THE MYTHOS OF SAMUEL HUNTSMAN

If I should round the corner quickly—

Or suddenly turn my head—

I know I’d catch them preparing the scene,

Painting a tree or hanging the moon,

Arranging houses and streets exactly

In the desperate game which is God’s.

For I have seen through their plausible lies—

That of a uniform world,

And cities existing beyond these hills,

Or on rain-wet pampas ferocious bulls,

A logic of morrows and yesterdays

Or real seeds under this field.

The surface is thin as a gilding of oil

Upon an enormous lake

Deep as infinity, void as a gas,

On which they plant the lying rose

To delude the sniffing child or the fool.

But me they cannot expect

To wink forever, never to turn

And look at their empty stage

Of space starless and planetless

Where they swarm to cover some nakedness,

A ravaged fruit tree perhaps, some sin

That calls to me to judge.

One question has to be wrestled down

Before I smash this façade:

Are they worlds, these other men, Thomas or Roger,

Like me, with their plague of conjurers

Or but lesser dolls in the scene of one

Who will deal alone with God?