THE DARK CENTAUR
Between the goat
and the scorpion,
between the horn
and the sting,
the dark centaur stands.
He eyes the centuries
that hold him there
to a slow march,
half-man, half-beast,
his arrow still in hand.
The bow is gone,
long since fallen
among the angels,
when love and honor warred,
while Jacob wept.
Hunter and hunted,
marksman and mark,
he travels on
past island suns
where none has stepped.
You can see him
on a clear night
in the southern sky,
when the earth swings
and the ninth sign appears.
And if you listen,
you may also hear
a far-off wind
carry his cry
down the light-years:
"O blessed and damned,
in heaven and hell,
in passion and intellect,
all you who are twinned
even as I!
"Who controls his fate?
Say! Who can escape
being pierced or grazed
by its accident or chance?"
A shooting star replies.