List of attributes for the Perfect Stone:

It has its light from silent gestation
and darkens the ground or altar where it lies.

It gives off glances from nowhere
through a skein of objections to its existence at all.

It is weighed in the antechamber
where the naked king makes mock of his kingdom.

			i

You are lost
in the possession
of the only thing
you have.
The Stone and its mortal enemies
atone.
They sit together infolded
as before the gaze
of a single mind.

			It is
cold stone
embedded in the hands of thought
ejecting and rebracing
all that can occur.

			ii

The stone on the left shines white.
Its window parts upon receding waters.
The sky inside is black. No moon. No stars.
No shining rider forwarding.

The stone behind it rests on a quilt. Intricate
Figures complicate its surfaces. Inside
Black parts of tar/ churn with watery lights.
Small men with iron instruments are working.

			iii

The Stone in the Stone takes refuge
and glances out along the boulevard. Fine white
horses leap out from its portals
and stampede the townsmen back into their houses.

Then they go to the plains and dissolve in the heat.
Fine black horses ride in through the dawn
and enter the portals of the silent Stone.

			iv

			Permit Absolute Vantage.
			Rub the Stone.

Bracket forks and table.
Bracket rumble and lights.
Bracket the restaurant.
Bracket the night.

Bracket the warm air from your body to the walls.
Bracket the cold air from the door here to your house.
Bracket the door of your house.
Bracket the steps of your house.

 			From here
the heart directs its many-beamed glance
into indifferent fields of falling matter.

The heart is not the Heart.

The glance dreams
inside the Glance.

The glance which does not dream gold beams
inside a glance of golden beams
is the Stone.

May we bracket
the Stone.
The darkest dream
						within the dreaming
		the darkest gold
							within the Glance.

We may bracket the glance.

We may be
The Stone

			v

		we are
as everything.

the silent elders
living in the Stone.

They transform gray shoulders
with a burden of lances.

“Burdens to bear” bowed heads towards
the sea. Burdens to bear.

			vi

Atone the sea.
Behind the sea.

The eye in the net. The eye
looking out of the net.

The Stone withholds
beyond the glances
going out from the Stone.

Inside the bracket
where absolute life atones
ineluctable matter.

Who goes there.

Where absolute life begins again
to sequester its beginning.

Like everything else.

Like the idiot child
alone with essential movements.

Who goes there ?

I turn in fear.

Atone your fear.