The Performance

The last time I saw Donald ArmstrongHe was staggering oddly off into the sun,Going down, of the Philippine Islands.I let my shovel fall, and put that handAbove my eyes, and moved some way to one sideThat his body might pass through the sun,

And I saw how well he was notStanding there on his hands,On his spindle-shanked forearms balanced,Unbalanced, with his big feet looming and wavingIn the great, untrustworthy airHe flew in each night, when it darkened.

Dust fanned in scraped puffs, from the earthBetween his arms, and blood turned his face inside out,To demonstrate its supplenessOf veins, as he perfected his role.Next day, he toppled his head offOn an island beach to the south,

And the enemy’s two-handed swordDid not fall from anyone’s handsAt that miraculous sight,As the head rolled over uponIts wide-eyed face, and fellInto the inadequate grave

He had dug for himself, under pressure.Yet I put my flat hand to my eyebrowsMonths later, to see him againIn the sun, when I learned how he died,And imagined him, there,Come, judged, before his small captors,

Doing all his lean tricks to amaze them—The back somersault, the kip-up—And at last, the stand on his hands,Perfect, with his feet together,His head down, evenly breathing,As the sun poured up from the sea

And the headsman broke downIn a blaze of tears, in that lightOf the thin, long human frameUpside down in its own strange joy,And, if some other one had not told him,Would have cut off the feet

Instead of the head,And if Armstrong had not presently risenIn kingly, round-shouldered attendance,And then knelt down in himselfBeside his hacked, glittering grave, having doneAll things in this life that he could.

from Into the Stone (1960)