Chases in Arras

Chases in Arras, guilded emptinesse,
Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,
Embroider'd lyes, nothing between two dishes;
                       These are the pleasures here.
                                  — George Herbert, "Dotage"

At a B&B in sober Ocean Grove
           (Victorian gingerbread architecture and flags),
I was woken from a sound sleep at 1:35
           by a citizen on the boardwalk finding his sea-legs

in a lightly-embellished version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
           I tore out half-dressed just as he concluded
and stowed a gleaming trumpet in his car.
           He seemed baffled at how he had offended,

and in the bovine patience of his gaze,
           I saw the dozing Methodist encampment,
and behind it the republic's distances
           westward, outlasting all sustained intent,

and myself, too, in broken khakis, haggard,
           impeachable, alone. I thought: Shall I
bury him with a curse and go back to bed?
           But then I heard the Atlantic, endlessly

tumbling and shuddering out of the darkness,
           advance its famished luminescent edge
to embroider our chases in Arras
           and comprehend them in its ancient deluge.

Karl Kirchwey
Southwest Review
Volume 91, Number 2 / 2006

Copyright © 2006 by Southern Methodist University.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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