Throne by Gina Franco

Throne

After James Hampton’s The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly “Where There Is No Vision The People Perish” —Hampton, Proverbs 29:18

To happen on it, resplendent in its vault. Body of
________echoes, body of borrowed light. As if sealed,
a book has been opened; indecipherable, now
________the script glances with imminent signs (—but who
can see it to completion—?) Foil over foil and still luster
________only darkens
____________________-__the face of the deep. And only
later is this everywhere familiar. The bay nearing
________low tide. Midday sun. The whole shore a flattened
mirror, and as far as we could see the world was all
________light on water, our walking rippling
through many surfaces—sky/sea, sand/clouds—
________our stepping into reflections and leaving
_________________________________-_________________invisible
impressions in the path … image of aisle and horizon,
________as though a destination has laid itself down,
at last, before time … image of the sea spewing up
________its dead, as though something endless is about
to begin … with meaning
_________________-_________nearing, but ever nearing
________beyond reach, like a really good dream. So the deep
will have its monsters. So flesh beyond recognition. What a man
________will do to another man. To his God. What a man
will see, left alone. With his book.
_______________________-________-___There is vision and there is
________the threat of emptiness in vision … image of
the bare throne beneath its glinting tin: waste, ruin, garbage:
________the moon hanging over the dirty beach,
the moon gathering dust around it, glowing its dead gold glow
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________into the vault of the sky. Into the everything,
largely, to be given up, refused, before being
________can return to its king. Into what-is, ever
shrouded within what-ought-to-be. What was,
________in the old allegories, the end of all
____________________________________________thrones: home
coming. Into the waking
_________________________-to thin snow on the frozen again
________garden beds after a false spring tricked the lamb’s
ear back before time. Moonflower, crowning tulip
________bulbs, fools
_____________________of a certain soullessness. It is bitter
cold, and we knew that man in the empty lot had
________no place to sleep. That he stepped from the shadows
a shadow—least of these—and blessed us as we
________idled past, turned away, looked ahead
________________________________________________-to the exit

that leads to the road going home.
____________________________________-Easy. To be
________touched from this distance now as if light
will flicker in darkness, and darkness
________will fail to recognize it. To admit
to cruelty that belongs, after long alleviation
________of time and remove, to another
you. The one made up
________________________of incandescent idols
of soul. The one that thinks beauty
________is enough and resents that there is not
enough of it. Sun. Water in a clear glass
________pitcher on the breakfast table. Corona
of light breaking over the scarred dark
________wood. Like the sculpture gleaming away
its vault, the sculpture overshadowing
________the otherwise emptied lot—perfect
_____________________________________-_______-elegy—
in which the worst you’ve done is bettered,
________and you are consoled in the event
of grieving. For
________________there is always grieving. Always
________the cathedral mind longs to be
__________________________-______________the fire
in the bulb, not the bulb. The lord, not the lord’s
________throne. And this is the beginning
of becoming
________meaner, where little is freely given
up, in case it proves itself
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__________________________-needful. After all. Because
________what if the mind is
a hovel, finally, and the kingdom
________being built there is paper and tinsel in a dark
room. Room over room, so hidden
________it doesn’t exist. In the streetlamp
raining in
________the window, there’s a passerby
_________________________________________(caught fleetingly)
in spotlight. Then a small shed, besides. Little
________outside to notice, to tell what may lie
______________________________________________-inside,
advancing. Little sign. Not even gravity
________in the look of things, such is the silence
of such poverty. Lightless, the tiresome
________sameness of the downpour, its sad
angle. Too bad the category for what is lacking
________in things is apathy. Too bad the category
for darkness is
_______________-reigning
all in its wake. What it will erase
________to see itself being seen
_________________________________(, there,)
among the white garments in the kingdom
________of the mind. Invisible builder, invisible visitor
apparitions. Nonetheless speaking into the hollow. Repeating
________themselves in symmetrical dreams
____________________________________________-(—fear
not—)
____________________________________________-(—do not be
afraid—) and forms. Because what if to be
________a sign is to be
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______________________something else also. A promise?
A deferment. In which what matters seems
______________________________________________(not yet?)
evident. A betrothal. In which what is
________present is
___________________-(at the crux)
absent. Someone saying you complain
________though it’s not yet finished. Wait for it
to be done. But what is
________to be done? Night garden, star
________________________________________-light. Moon
again, orange, huge
_____________________as it should
________be, hanging
over the horse farm one of the nights I waited for
________you to come home. Wind, clouds
racing through the sky. The field made grave as the moon, now
________overcast, is snuffed out,
_________________________________suddenly. Hope. Holding
out for an end of waiting, as
________if a secret
___________________(—God’s—) intention
________rides with the fire, and the clouds, and the ghost
seated in time before eternity is a thing of … expulsion, is it?
________… constellation? Thrown
_________________________________-out so to be
pieced back together again? So to be
________worthless and waiting for the fullness of meaning
to arrive. Isn’t that a sign? The moon
________is a corpse. As is
a house, as is
________a temple. Is a raised
______________________________(—empty?/empty.—)
glass done
________up to be a grail. Is a grail. The horses drink in
the moon
___________-light and the moon
-light shivers and breaks and re-
__________________________________collects in
________the flashing troughs (light from light from light
from light), a memory. What is done. And a symbol.
______________________________________________________Symbol,
meaning “with” and “throw.” The horses departed
________into the dark back pastures, leaving me (their hoof
-prints) in the path. I followed. We have been thrown
_____together

Gina Franco is the author of The Keepsake Storm. Her work has appeared in many journals, including 32 Poems, Black Warrior Review, BorderSenses, Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, Diagram, Image: Art, Faith, Mystery, Fence, The Georgia Review, Poetry, Tuesday; an Art Project, West Branch Wired, and Zone 3. Her writing is also anthologized in A Best of Fence: the First Nine Years, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing, and The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity. She is an oblate with the Catholic monastic order of the Community of St John, and she teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.