5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
They both let loose at once, and I think
Of putting on my shoes to go up and see
Whether it is merely an experiment
Their parents have been conducting
Upon the good crystal, which must surely
Lie shattered to dust on the floor.
We drove through the gates
into a maze of little roads,
with speed bumps now,
that circled a pavilion,
field house, and ran past
the playing fields and wound
their way up to the cluster
of wood and stone buildings
of the school you went to once.
The green was returning to
the trees and lawn, the lake
was still half-lidded with ice
and blind in the middle.
There was nobody around
except a few cars in front
of the administration. It must
have been spring break.
I am dreaming of a house just like this one
but larger and opener to the trees, nighter
than day and higher than noon, and you,
visiting, knocking to get in, hoping for icy
milk or hot tea or whatever it is you like.
For each night is a long drink in a short glass.
A drink of blacksound water, such a rush
and fall of lonesome no form can contain it.
And if it isn’ t night yet, though I seem to
recall that it is, then it is not for everyone.
Did you receive my invitation? It is not
prays for birds
before an ancient icon —
a stray cat.
The inbred need
to pray
is what makes God
necessary,
and not, she says,
the other way
around;
beyond that
it’ s all mystery,
so don’ t question
why Man creates gods
that demand
sacrifice,
condemning mortals
to spend their lives
trying to praise
godhead into mercy.
Better instead
to ask the frog
to bless the fly,
and, once the cheese
is in the trap,
to beg forgiveness
from the rat.
I always thought reality
was something you became
when you grew up.
In the square stands Fata Morgana
looking tired, shouting
Morning paper — morning paper.
Change, move, dead clock, that this fresh day
May break with dazzling light to these sick eyes.
Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,
That time may find its sound again, and cleanse
Whatever it is that a wound remembers
After the healing ends.
Originally appeared in the October 1947 issue of Poetry magazine.
Plurality is all. I walk among the restaurants,
the theatres, the grocery stores; I ride the cars
and hear of Mrs. Bedford’ s teeth and Albuquerque,
strikes unsettled, someone’ s simply marvelous date,
news of the German Jews, the baseball scores,
storetalk and whoretalk, talk of wars. I turn
the pages of a thousand books to read
the names of Buddha, Malthus, Walker Evans, Stendhal, André Gide,
Mail-day, and over the world in a thousand drag-nets
The bundles of letters are dumped on the docks and beaches,
And all that is dear to the personal conscious reaches
Around us again like filings around iron magnets,
And war stands aside for an hour and looks at our faces
Of total absorption that seem to have lost their places.
As a sloop with a sweep of immaculate wing on her delicate spine
And a keel as steel as a root that holds in the sea as she leans,
Leaning and laughing, my warm-hearted beauty, you ride, you ride,
You tack on the curves with parabola speed and a kiss of goodbye,
Like a thoroughbred sloop, my new high-spirited spirit, my kiss.
The bugle sounds the measured call to prayers,
The band starts bravely with a clarion hymn,
From every side, singly, in groups, in pairs,
Each to his kind of service comes to worship Him.
