1
As so-called quarks, so atoms before and through
And after molecules, which too
Constitute us awhile, pluming
Through our slowly changing shapes
Like beachscapes
Through a duneless sandglass, say
(I said, once) — all these
So utterly forgetful, wiped clean
As numbers with each new use, lint-free.
How not so words, which pass our minds
And mouths and ears from hind-
Most elsewhere, on their way to elsewhere — why
The statue, that cast
Of my solitude
Has found its niche
In this kitchen
Where I do not eat
Where the bathtub stands
Upon cat feet —
I did not advance
I cannot retreat
1
Is this writing mine
Whose name is this
Did I underline
What I was to miss?
2
An upheaval of leaves
Enlightens the tree
Rooted it receives
Gusts on a spree
3
Beauty makes me sad
Makes me grieve
I see what I must leave
4
Scaffold, gallows
Do whose will
Who hallows wood
To build, kill
The niche narrows
Hones one thin
Until his bones
Disclose him
A Girl,
Her soul a deep-wave pearl
Dim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;
A face flowered for heart’ s ease,
A brow’ s grace soft as seas
Seen through faint forest-trees:
A mouth, the lips apart,
Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breeze
From her tempestuous heart.
Such: and our souls so knit,
Mortal, if thou art beloved
Life's offences are removed;
All the fateful things that checked thee,
Hearten, hallow, and protect thee.
Grow'st thou mellow? What is age?
Tinct on life's illumined page,
Where the purple letters glow
Deeper, painted long ago.
What is sorrow? Comfort's prime,
Love's choice Indian summer clime.
Sickness! — thou wilt pray it worse
For so blessed, balmy nurse.
And for death! when thou art dying
'Twill be Love beside thee lying.
Death is lonesome? Oh, how brave
Now, in a breath, we’ ll burst those gates of gold,
And ransack heaven before our moment fails.
Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
We’ ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.
White hail pelting the frozen bog,
I’ m stuck in the first line of January,
following my host’ s dog
on his walk through the stone century,
around the quarry, slices of marble and mud,
past a herd of miners exhaling smoke,
past a barn smelling of merde,
and back to where I’ m stuck and broke.
The fucking dog barks at the night,
mad at the stars all his life and then again.
I rethink kicking him out,
but being cool, I let him in.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
First
it is one day without you.
Then two.
And soon,
our point: moot.
And our solution, diluted.
And our class action (if ever was)
is no longer suited.
Wherewith I give to looting through
the war chest of our past
like a wily Anne Bonny
who snatches at plunder or graft.
But the wreck of that ransack,
that strongbox, our splintering coffer,
the claptrap bastard
of the best we had to offer,
is sog-soaked and clammy,
empty but for sand.
