BRUCE BOND

from “For the Lost Cathedral”

8
His instinct of the holy was never
the chosen and so not holy enough.
His instinct of the more holy

was how he walked gently like a fly
on a pool of fresh rain. His instinct
of the secret was how childhood saw

the great unflinching eye that notes
all things, the name that would hold fast
the river, the river that holds the gaze

of names. Which is to say he needed
a greater vantage point than any
man or name. He needed a Lord

the way a body needs a brain,
the way some of us need to see the King
as what he rules. Long live the King.

A child rules a world of toys.
She does not know where she ends,
the toys begin. Of those who watch,

who, if any, she will survive.