What if the moon was essence of quinine
And high heels were a time of day
When certain birds bled
The chauffeur is telling the cook
The antler would pry into ice floes
Swim with a lamp
And we’ d be shivering in a ditch
Biting through a black wing
There would be boats
There would be a dream country
The great quiet humming of the soul at night
The only sound is a shovel
Clearing a place for a mailbox
A white bull, a cassock, an antique mirror
The famous ones have passed hours in front of,
A midnight blue tuxedo, a fainting couch, a key
To a box of lewd photographs, a swastika,
Twelve bales of hay, three grave plots, a statue
Of Christ holding a heart pierced by a dagger,
A black patch, all kinds of utensils for the sick —
Including thirty-nine feet of catheter tubing,
A houseboat, a dog, a baby grand, an oar
Said to have been carved from a lovely river
And a woman’ s hat by Alfred Jarry, a mattress,
Toll for the brave
The brave! that are no more:
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore.
Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel
And laid her on her side;
A land-breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Thou know’ st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjur’ d up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
How oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slacken’ d to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence with what pleasure have we just discern’ d
The distant plough slow-moving, and beside
His lab’ ring team, that swerv’ d not from the track,
Thus heav’ n-ward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor’ d.
So God has greatly purpos’ d; who would else
In his dishonour’ d works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong’ d without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter’ d world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see,
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
Each morning in the little white cabin
by the river they woke to a raccoon
clawing under the floorboards or banging
in the wood stove. They did not discuss this.
Instead they said it was a perfect day
to pick blueberries on the hill, or that
a hike to the old glassworks sounded good.
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us
he wants to go to sleep,
but he's restless —
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds
Les plantes et les planètes
Au même ciel obáissent ;
Du même soleil les bêtes
Et les hommes se nourrissent ;
Et le mátal dans la mine
Couve l'astre minuscule,
Soufre dont la fleur si fine
Vit en chaque corpuscule.
Naines ou gáantes sont
Poudre et bran jetás loin
Qui sans chute ou frein s'en vont
Aux quatre mondes sans coin
Ni angle, d'anges peuplás,
Mais d'autres disent que non,
Dont les mondes envolás
Seraient comme d'un canon,
Where does such sadness in wood come
from? How could longing live in these
wires? The box looks like the most fragile
coffin tuned for sound. And laid
across the knees of this woman
it looks less like a baby nursed
than some symbolic Pietà,
and the stretched body on her lap
yields modalities of lament
and blood, yields sacrifice and sliding
chants of grief that dance and dance toward
a new measure, a new threshold,
a new instant and new year which
we always celebrate by
remembering the old and by
Believe it or not,
the old woman said,
and I tried to picture it:
a girl,
the polished white ribs of a roast
tied to her boots with twine,
the twine coated with candle wax
so she could glide
uninterrupted
across the ice —
my mother,
skating on bones.
