The Sphinx and the Moon
Stephen Childress (University of Missouri, USA)
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A monumental stone sphinx
lay solemn witness at the war memorial,
wings shrouding its face to symbolize death
As I stood before it, the hoary pinions slowly spread
to reveal an eternal, starless night
with a panoramic tableau unfurling like a flag
back in time
How I was drawn
with horrible fixation to the vivid scenario
as every war was unveiled in shuddering detail
within the bowels of history
Untold images of life cut short
arose in pitiless silence
until the forms dissolved into darkness,
and the sphinx’s massive wings ground shut like a vault
At once I reeled from an infinite weariness
and was stunned to find myself
standing alone, past midnight—
I had come at dawn
As I descended the ramp to the reflecting pool
the wan half-moon was mirrored in the water
looking as if a full-moon had been cut in two
and one half fallen
And the two halves were myself, divided:
one part elevated,
yet unable to divine its double,
a terrestrial continuum of self-destruction
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Stephen Childress: currently Arthur Mag Doctoral Fellow, UMKC, and writing biography of the assassinated president of Rwanda. BFA, Herron School of Art, I.U. Indiana Arts Commission Artist in Residence, Artist in Residence, Arts Acre, Kolkata, India, and represented in Eiteljorg Museum and private collections. Co-published poetry mag with Ronald Wray. Two plays produced, one in Mumbai, one in Tokyo. Filmed two documentaries, wrote/illustrated two children’s books, and write an online film review. Currently living in Boston.
