A missionary from the Mau Mau told me.
There are spores blowing from space.
He has himself seen an amazing botany
springing the jungle. Fruit with a bearded face
that howls at the picker. Mushrooms that bleed.
A tree of enormous roots that sends no trace
above ground; not a leaf. And he showed me the seed
of strange lettuces that induce
languages. The Jungle has come loose,
is changing purposes.
Nor are these vegetations
of the new continuum the only sign.
New eyes have observed the constellations.
And what does not change when looked at?--coastline?
sea? sky? The propaganda of the wind reaches.
Set watches on your gardens. What spring teaches
seed shall make new verbs. A root is a tongue.
I repeat it as he spoke it. I do not interpret
what I do not understand. He comes among
many who have come to us. He speaks and we forget
and are slow to be reminded. But he does come,
signs do appear.
There are poisoned islands far over:
fish from their reefs come to table, and some
glow in the dark not of candlelight. A windhover
chatters in the counters of our polar camps.
A lectern burns. Geese jam the radar. The red phone
rings. Is there an answer? Planes from black ramps
howl to the edge of sound. The unknown
air breaks from them. They crash through.
What time is it in orbit? Israeli teams
report they have found the body, but Easter seems
symbolically secure. What more is true?
How many megatons of idea is a man? What island
lies beyond his saying? I have heard, and say
what I heard said, and believe. I do not understand.
But I have seen him change water to blood, and call away
The Lion from its Empire. He speaks that tongue.
I have seen white bird and black bird follow him, hung
like one cloud over his head. His hand,
when he wills it, bursts into flame. The white bird
and the black divide and circle it. At his word
they enter the fire and glow like metal. A ray
reaches from him to the top of the air,
and in it the figures of a vision play
these things I believe whose meaning I cannot say.
Then he closes his fist and there is nothing there.
(1965)