A CORINTHIAN ODE Poem by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

though I speak with the tongues of animals and things
and you did not break or tear me apart
I would bleat like trinkets
or howl in a house plant


and though I have the gift of prophecy
and am well-read in the monuments one did smite
from yellowed sorrow on wings of glorious rhyming granite
and I have the windbag that blasts basalt to prophets
and have not you
I would be a windblown leaf in windiness
and barf witness to bare drift sand


and though I sing my loins and surrender
and you were not to scorch my senses
senseless would I be white on white


you snatch me prey and your tongue lets what once was silent
scream in the language of angels
and all things cover you all things believe you -
all things hope you all things bear you
you will never fail but whether there be chiselled
and thumbtacked passion you fulfil its prophecy
whether pomp it will crave you
whether word-hoard you are its bride


for we taste in part and partly surmise
but when perfection bites
mystery tastes our entire tongue


when I was not yet animal I spoke as a man
I was as a man inclined I lay as a man
yet now born in your sense


for in the mirror I saw no mystery
yet now body in body


and now abides your body in my senses these three
but the greatest of these is your body