The Gatepost Vol. 7.7: Strange Holiness

Part 1: "STRANGE HOLINESS
There is a strange holiness around Our common days on common ground.
I have heard it in the birds Whose voices reach above all words, Going upward, bars on bars
Until they sound as high as stars.
I have seen it in the snake, A flowing jewel in the brake.
It has sparkled in my eyes In luminous breath of fireflies.
I have come upon its track
Where trilliums curled their petals back.
1 have seen it flash in under
The towers of the midnight thunder.
Once, 1 met it face to face In a fox pressed by the chase,
He came down the road on feet, Quiet and fragile, light as heat.
He had a fish still wet and bright In his slender jaws held tight.
His ears were conscious whetted darts
His eyes had small flames in their hearts.
The preciotisness of life and breath Glowed through him as he outran death.
Strangeness and secrecy and pride Ran rippling down his golden hide.
His beauty was not meant for me With my dull eyes so close to see.
Unconscious of me rapt, alone,
He came and then stopped still as stone."
Part 2:
"(Continued on page four, column one)
ON ROBERT P. TRISTRAM COFFIN
(Continued front page three)
His eyes went out as in a gust, His beauty crumbled into dust.
There was but a ruin there, A hunted creature, stripped and bare.
Then he faded at one stroke
Like a dingy, melting smoke.
But there his fish lay like a key To the bright, lost mystery.
—Robert P. Tristram Coffin.
(Courtesy of the author)
—Hope Hathaway."