J. Michael Martinez
after “The Movement of the Universe”
c. 1450-1500
Flemish, possibly Tournai tapestry
415 x 800 (163 3/8 x 315)
Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo
“Thus adorned with the fixed stars the sky revolves under the pole both through the region of the North Wind and the South Wind; according to their different effects they are fitted to different figures of people and other signs and planets and the belt of the zodiac keeps their movement under itself.”
– in Latin on tapestry
Toward the burning lamp
from which all nations drink—
the world’s pastures in the wildness
framed, a cry from its den
within phosphorus the abyss of light
plaits, expression in exultation,
these living accords
through cartilage, cardiac plexus
and tendon
stellis fixis tam per acquilonis locum
quam per austrum, juxta diverses effectus
embroidered through the fabric of Atlas’s worn skin
the tarot taken
flesh, carried between flesh
of bittersweet leaf
& jewelweed
terra firma’s boundaries concentric
and shadowed; the Holy Mother holds,
wedding day of the lamb
lined on palm, the celestial sphere, the sphered ambitions within
the mapping, the measuring
of illimitable translation.
*
When the Angel acts the sky revolves on its iron crank
but who is the Satyr above the polar circle?
As time lived extension without boundary or cross
who is She who weeps
robed in curled blue
azurite indefinite,
is she sickle shape
in human frame
where the crest of death is cleansed?
Who is She circumscribing daybreak’s transparence,
duration stilled in parchment,
limned
in ink
her thorax as compass, palm as locus
her anger the unfixed
parameters of prayer,
pale minutes flocking to purlieus?
*
In silence Philosophy courts Abraham,
a papyrus codex
of ancestry,
on thrones of unpatterned
reason, to question
the covenant, the circumcision
for ascension, the gash more tender
than rods of gold, beryl studded.
Robed in carmine,
Geometry whispers,
*What light lives us,
what light is lived, cultivates
heresy
crying for water.”
In cry’s silence, Atlas
gathers the last hour,
in kid leather boots
plaits
the rings of longitude
into spined thickets
of a widow’s grey braids,
garlands of light
into a crown of bodies.
J. Michael Martinez received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets for his first book, “Heredities.” His latest, “In the Garden of the Bridehouse,” is available from the University of Arizona Press. He is the Poetry Editor of NOEMI Press and his writings are anthologized in Ahsahta Press’ “The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral,” Rescue Press’ “The New Census: 40 American Poets,” and Counterpath Press’ “Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing.”