L'Annunciazione; From Bellini

NED O'GORMAN

L'ANNUNCIAZIONE; FROM BELLINI

An angel stepping through her window said:

I come to you, a sign from him who sent me.

And leaving then her unbelief she told

the incident from off the sill

and bade it sit before her on the floor.

There was nothing like the fear she felt;

to have a winged and sudden thing

appear to her with not a trumpet or

a trace of wind. She bade him come and say,

if anything would say it well, the news.

He said: I bring you barns and donkeys,

satraps and camel humps, one dozen sheep,

their shepherds and their smell, a star,

a raging king, his sharp knife and a man

who cuts out windows, doors and chairs.

She said: I am used to walking and no grand

folderol of yours will still the flying wind

nor feign trumpets out of silence; connive away,

there's breach enough in any God

to answer you. I have no truck with incidents.

He said: I bring you meadow and winter,

cyprus and river, white oxen in the sun,

a boy whose eyes scare dolphins high

as kites; the beautiful mirror of the incessant

zero; I bring you contradiction.

She said: I'll leave you now, you incident,

and from my sight you'll fly, leaving

your wing's shadow caught on that shutter,

your spine breaking the light. I must get

off the dream and back to filling jars.

He said: I bring you flaring squares, circles,

perpendiculars, and trapezoids; I bring you

color from the sun. I bring you

folderol. You'll be Jehovah's honeycomb.

I bring you caravans, a burglary.

She said: I will behave as filling jars were

all my life; I will decide to have a walk,

and incident, I shall not dance again

nor tremble when some doubtful thing steps on my sill.

And fell from heaven then a dominion in her womb.