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Three New Murphy Poems

Cross and Veil; Historian; To the Dean

Cross and Veil

I grew up with Aurora Borealis,
in Walhalla, North Dakota, “Northern Lights”
that flickered through our noctilucent nights.
One year, past Hudson Bay, I hiked the talus
that spalled with icefalls from Mount Odin’s peak
and reached a plaque that read Le Cercle Arctique—
a place so bleak, our dome tent seemed a palace.

Grown old, we leave the Antipode unseen—
the Southern Cross beyond the shimmer-screen
mariners named Aurora Australis.

Historian

Leviticus was parroted by Paul,
and the gays lay with Jews in Nazi graves.
     Men would be whipping slaves
if we were wholly in the Bible’s thrall.
 
Catholic and queer by grace of God’s design,
carrier of the cross so many shared
     and every straight is spared,
you mastered many tongues I wish were mine.

Your photo on an old dust jacket fades.
Strangers who envied you your boyish looks
     took comfort from your books;
your students grieved when you were felled by AIDS.

John Boswell, you have gone to your long home
where the streets are paved not with gold but dirt
     and the Lord’s loins are girt
not with the purple of imperious Rome.

To the Dean

I was amazed to see Batter my heart
in the breviary of a Catholic priest
    who wages battle with The Beast
       and longs to divine your art.

You make it look so easy, Dr. Donne:
from courtier to prelate in a minute
    timed by the human heartbeats in it,
      a sprint to heaven won.

I am the much indebted legatee
of words four hundred years have not erased,
     your ardent lover, never chaste
        except you ravish me.

God was the sitting judge for your complaint.
Amicus curiae, win for me relief
    from mortal sin as though my brief
        were argued by a saint.