Ascendant

Venus rises in a shattered east
Of cloudwrack, the sea shrieks on the rock,
Love has come to winter on the coast.

Cliffs of rain, the seawash, wind and sand,
Your flickering look of doubt, and turn away,
If I am broken now, what was I then?

Well -- younger. The panicked spinning Earth
Running from the sun and always falling
To it all the same; the frightened Moon,

Turning one face to her twin and to her death.
They say from Mars we are a brilliant double star,
Blue Earth and white Moon,

Circling each other, exhausted fighters,
Trembling arms and bleeding faces, lymph
And tears mixing, and the never-sounding bell.