Come before His Countenance with a Joyful Leaping

Swivelling flat-soled on the dirt but ready to bound in arches at

the nick of time, spurring yourselves, come all as you are

with footbones rattling like claques, with storking knees

careering into the crooked distance, horning in and out of

sight.

Come coasting in circles, rearing, running aground, and flickering

up the air, peeling and flaking away like handbills over the

sloping daylight,

Come lambing and fishing, outflanking the body's heights at a

single stroke, out of breath, out at the elbows, spreading

blank palms and flinching up hillsides hoisted out of mind,

Come at a loss out of manholes and sandtraps, jerking free at the

heart, assaulted and blinking on dislocated ankles, swollen

with song from the twisted wreckage, dying and rigorous

after the second wind,

For He is falling apart in His unstrung parbuckles, His beard

blown loose by harmonious unction, His countenance

breaking, His fragments flopping up and around without

us to the stretches of morning.