Manifest

I watched horizons for a sign,
any sign to show that solid truth:
a flash of light, an image dreamed,
a visitation holy asked—
not much.
Not for a God,
to show
that solid beam
to found the rest.

     I cried

I need to know,

    an echo

of former voices along
some unremembered line;
and strained my eyes to
see more than heated fantasies
within the fading clouds

     —while you
stood behind me, whispering
beyond what could not be.
I knew poets—miglior fabro—
who had been denied that face before.

    Why not me?

As I looked out on empty skies
A gentler breeze than trumpet blasts
called me to look in.

Had I turned
and heard the voice
behind the thunder,
what then would I have seen,
I wonder?