Autumn in Alexandria

by Brett Rutherford

There is one who waits for me,
sheltered from wind and wave
behind a Corinthian column.
The priests have gone,
the lamps have died:
all fled the thunderstorm in fear.
Across the way, librarians
have shuttered knowledge up
against the idiot howling
of intemperate weather.
Every dog is in a ditch
while untethered cats
cling to the upper limbs
of the pliant willows.
Nobody has any business
out of doors; nobody,
that is, except the one who waits.

I watch, snug and safe,
from my high window.
He seems to have lashed himself
to that pillar of solid stone.
Marble will not bend or sway,
and in its leeward shade
his cloak hangs limp; he leans
as though he had nothing to do
but to await my arrival.
(I dare not go. Bruises and breaks
at my age are dangerous.)

Storm without name,
three hours now
the rain has been horizontal,
the roar of wind a long,
monotonous engine.
I, who am of tempests
tossed often enough,
feel a kinship with thunder
and its maker. One thing
alone I ask of you:

Lift up that column,
that patient loiterer,
and the stone he stands upon,
into some calm place
above the cloudy rage.
In stillness keep him safe
until your blow and bluster
recede to nothing,
until the floods flood back
and storm drains regain
their proper direction,
until the cats regain
their dry-fur dignity
and the dogs resume
whatever it is
dogs do of a sunny day.

Two eyes regard me
from out the thunder-head.
“You are a fool,”
the demon says.
“What makes you think
you are the one he braves
the elements to see?

Did your poems win
his favor?
Does he pass your books out
to one and all,
call you his friend and mentor,
implying more
to those who mark the pause,
and the sigh,
each time the syllables
of your exalted name
depart his lips?”

“Of this one I am sure,”
I protest. “Spare him!” —

“Shelter he took,”
the sly one assures me,
“just where he knew
you would see,
and be tormented so.

“On other nights he lurks
on the unlit stairway
behind the library,
not for you — fool! —
but for the first who comes
and extends a hand.” —

“No, he is noble. Poets
he loves above all!” —

“Two moons ago he let himself
go home with some astrologer,
and then a geometer who said
he had the most appealing angles,
and then with a captain just back
from Rome with Rhenish wine.” —

“I’ll not hear this! Gossip vile!” —

“Most of your scholar-rivals
frequent that place at night,
and most have noticed him,
and he, them. He uses your name
to make acquaintance, you know.

“Now, look, Callimachus,
there comes Lysander,
leaning against the gale
and making his way
to the sheltered columns.”

“Lysander! The worst
of the worst! A greeting-card
scribbler of maudlin verse!” —

“Look! He has reached your friend.
They converse.
A hand is extended.
A hand is taken.
One cloak covers two.
They drop out of sight.” —

“Ah, well,” the demon jeers.
“Any poet in a storm.”