Lucifer in the Train

by ADRIENNE RICH

RIDING the black express from heaven to hell,
He bit his fingers, watched the countryside,
Vernal and crystalline, forever slide
Beyond his gaze: the long cascades that fell
Ribboned in sunshine from their sparkling height,
The fishers fastened to their pools of green
By silver lines, the birds in sudden flight —
All things the diabolic eye had seen
Since heaven’s cockcrow. Imperceptibly
That landscape altered; now in paler air
Tree, hill, and rock stood out resigned, severe
Beside the strangled field, the stream run dry.

Lucifer, we are yours who, stiff and mute,
Ride on from worlds we shall not see again,
And watch from windows of a smoking train
The ashen landscapes of the absolute.
Once out of heaven, to an angel’s eye
Where is the bush or cloud without a flaw?
What bird but feeds upon mortality,
Flies to its young with carrion in its claw?
O foundered angel, first and loneliest
To turn this bitter sand beneath your hoe,
Teach us, the newly-landed, what you know:
After our weary transit find us rest.