Nathan Lefkoff
Calculated Poem: Spiritus Mundi
Inspired by: -W.B. Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming
-research on the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption
-research on the bombing of Hiroshima during WWII
Spritus Mundi- “spirit of the world” (from The Second Coming)
————————————————————————————————————
Spiritus Mundi
Grieving in the gain of loss,
St. Helena tore herself open
and regurgitated like a mother bird for nine hours
to betray 11 million animals, 4 billion feet of timber,
and the man with the cats that could have fled but did not.
A force 500 times the bomb over Hiroshima,
the cloud that was purple and flashed internally.
Bodies erupted and spewed their dust and ashes
and something recoiled like the hand from the fire
and somebody stared as blank and as pitiless
as the face of a mountain.
That plane was a falcon,
strapped to its master,
and all it could hear was the falconer
as it shunned the gaping
its pilot blinder than the bomb that fell
to deafen a nation
and hatch desert birds that were trapped in the chests
of tens of thousands
to fly with the wind
and to nest in volcanoes