And when Montaigne turned thirty-eight,
he began to paint inscriptions on the roof beams
in his library. Words of Socrates.
Euripedes. Sophocles. Horace. Ecclesiastes.
Theognis. Epictetus. Lucretius. As if to keep
himself looking up. As if to remember
where the world has been. As if to know
himself as part of this glorious conversation.
And who have I painted on the roof beams
of my heart? Rumi. Neruda. Mira. Rilke.
Szymborska. Hopkins. Ahkmatova. Bass.
Every day, I climb into that tower and trace
their words with my thoughts, wander
their paths, let them hold my hand. Sometimes
they take me by the face, the way a mother
or a lover would, and hold me there as if to say,
Now listen. I mean this. I mean you.
Sometimes they stand passive, and
force me to find my own way in.
These are beams that never will burn,
the kind that hold up the sky.
Montaigne inscribed Horace, who
tells us: shelter where the storm drives you.
And wherever the storm, these beams
are there. Meanwhile, the thunder, the crackle
of lightning, the scent of the coming rain.
