This Question After So Many Centuries

You wed
           to art
this grief:   is it
      enough?
You feel the suffering
so much, so much of it
and you turn
to your making—the oils,
the notes, the words—                                   
but you wake in the night,
the window across the alley
burning, and the question
remains, the window
burns.

And you reading this  
who are moved
in a way that those ruling
and those amassing
can never be moved—
is it enough
as they continue
amassing, gaining?

You have your joy at times
at times you have your beauty
within the frame, within
the margins of the page,
you seek a calm balance                       
and enlightenment
within your days, you
love and give to the one
at your right hand, to the one
at your left, and certain days
the sun glittering on rain
tipping each leaf
moves through your heart
like a sweet sword
yet at night
at night at night at night the question
burns.

II.

Is beauty braided with compassion, with an invisible
silver edge not before seen along the blade,
the centuries revealing more of the invisible,
the collective seeing of the centuries of those
touched by beauty, by compassion
revealing more?

Is beauty a gold and silver sword
that must hang on the museum wall
is it braided with the silver of compassion
or is it pure gold, totally beyond the human
this beauty that cuts my heart,
does it heal my heart or does it wound me,
does it mark me as one who weeps
one who sighs and dreams,
does it weaken me can it be lifted
from the frame, carried through
the museum door
can it be wielded in the world
of amassing and extinctions
the world of those gaining, those
disappearing—

What is possible what is enough is
there a door, what is enlightenment
the beautiful heart in a room alone?
What is the translation
don’t after this many centuries say
it’s impossible this feeling inside flames
after so many centuries flames greater
than impossibility

yes                                   
                                     Guernica
on the wall, on the page The Grapes of Wrath
—the rising up
crushed and ground down, turn after turn
in the spin of history, but inside
the power steady, the power inside
how does it translate now
and equal the power outside
how to make the burning window
a light to see by and then
a light in our eyes
held fire to fire
to stop the burning:
window become mirror
blade become mirror
you, beautiful mirror-blade,
invisible blade
that cannot be touched, crushed
or ground down—now, finally
beyond crucifixion—come,
are you here to translate                       
to lift the human heart
into that utterly new field
silver-gold rose, all your thorns
torn out now
                        —tell me, in this field                       
are you now
                              —tell me you are now
               blooming.