III: Morphosis

Out of the past
with the spoor of a hunting animal,
its mind on death
its senses on the trail,
comes what my parents' parents gave them,
as powerful and vicious
as love seems frail.

Love stalks with naked foot among the bedrooms,
hearing helplessly the baby souls
of my mother and my father wail.

What cataclysm brings us down to this
that you, my father, swollen with age and drink,
are lying on my couch
blistering with sweat
and cursing the heat?

Youth let you be blind
and age seemed equally unkind
until Susannah saw your face.
As purity embraces scars
as life rebounds from the most savage wars
as dark's cold death yields to the birth of stars
so unconsidered love flowed from her
heart and yours
and gulled the beast.

Out of our past
there is little we can save
and yet my child, my father,
what you have made!