Calculation After Calculation Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Calculation after calculation
The
Hammers
On
The
Brain
Ticking
Ticking

The Poet Seer taking to
The Port of Mathematics
Linked together as in
Chemical bonds
Verses and figures
Verses and symbols
The chants were then
A whole mathematical plan
The Poet Seer was foisting.

You see
You see my Monsignor
How
Symbols fire
Even in the even cemetery
Light
That at first burnt low
But now flames out and
High
In the wild burning desires
Here
Here
You see
You see my Monsignor
You see.

The barefoot monks are
Chanting psalms
In the tormenting marble cold
Of the night cloisters
The night pity takes
But not more.

Then midnight deepens with
His subject clouds
The monks to the respective
Cells
Hasten their casement close
Yet
Within just a few hours
To open the casements yet again
On the new Dawn
*
The Poet Seer
Ah! the old cunning Poet Seer
Like wine he bettered more
And more
As his hair grayed
Then whitened
Then his back arched and
Bent
A little
From the studious days
Since childhood uninterrupted
The Poet Seer

As with a magic wand
His tongue and brain
As Prospero and Merlin
From scene to scene
He takes us at his
Will
In ever-increasing beauty.

And
Then
We utter ‘O’
As the night curtains fall
And with another swing
As yet of wand
Ushers he
The new Dawn.