Spiritus sanctus

God's breath moves

All being glitters

And the sun

Looks at itself

With a million eyes

At the jeweled globe

Turning in space

Sapphire and jade

Its singing cargo

Of blind worms

Turning the soil.

Spiritus sanctus

God's breath moves

The leaping generations rise

Pressing outward

With ears and eyes

To invent the world.

And to this end

In this our time

The armies spend

Themselves.

Sequestered in small rooms

The corpse-lipped generals

Considering clocks and calendars

Savor hate

Staring at four gray walls

With steady eyes

Dreaming of Alexander

Called "the Great."

They, with protesters

Police and politicians

Conspire with prostitutes

To play God's game

Hate-welded

God-together driven

To invent themselves

And all the world again.

And to this end

On teeming ant hill heights

On crumbling mounds

Drunk with their voices

Shrunken ultimate men

With words worn smooth and round

As tumbled stones

Delude the sleeping multitudes

And themselves.

Nor do they separate

But wed more surely

Closer than bark and wood

Than blood and vein

The deceiver and the deceived

The liar and the lied to

The invited slayer

And the willing slain.

And to this end

Inventors of the world

Sleepers who dream of death

This generation presses on

Lifeward, Godward Unknowing

Spiritus sanctus

On God's most holy

Breath.

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