WEBVTT

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This new book has
two sequences in it.

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One of them is like the
"Kyrie" book in that

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all the parts are made alike.

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They're all the same
length, and they also

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have various kind
of restrictions.

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The second one, though, is quite
different in that all the parts

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are made very different
from one another,

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in terms of trying to
use lyrics and trying

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to use some short narratives.

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And they all cluster around
a single sort of topic

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of meditation or inquiry.

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And the sequence is called
The Art of Distance.

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And I'll read just
a couple of those.

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And then I'll end
with something else.

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So the Art of Distance, 1.

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"Wrinkle coming toward
me in the grass,

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no fatter than that rickrack
or the scallops a ruffle

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roughly makes down to about the
14th vertebra, the rest of it

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rod instead of a coil--

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so I'd been wrong the
afternoon before when

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the dog, curious, eager
to play, and bored with me

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as I harvested the edge of the
raspberry thicket stalked it

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from the back stoop
to the lip of the bank

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and grab the tip in her
mouth and tossed it,

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sudden vertical
shudder, shoulder level.

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Wrong to read survival in
its cursive spiraling back

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to the cellar window-well where
it had gathered field mice like

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a cat--

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And now if it meant to
be heading for the brook,

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it veered off course,
its blunt head raised

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like a swimmer's in distress.

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The functioning part
gave out just short of me

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inside the shade
but not the bush.

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The damaged part
two fingers thick

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was torqued pale
belly up, sunstruck.

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I left it where it,
took the dog in,

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and for hours watched from
the kitchen window what

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seemed a peeled stick,
the supple upper body that

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had dragged it now
pointed away and occluded

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by the shade, the uncut grass.

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My strict father would have
been appalled not to dispatch

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a uselessly suffering thing.

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Made me the same, he'd
say as the man who

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seeing a toad, catatonic
Buddha in its niche,

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wedged within the vise of a
snake's efficient mouth clamped

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open for then
closing slowly down

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and over it bludgeoned them both
with the flat side of a hoe.

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For once I will accept
my father's judgment.

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But this had been my yard,
my snake, old enemy, resident

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at the back side of the house.

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For hours the pet dog
panting and begging,

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I watched from the window
as from a tower wall

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until it vanished, reluctant
arrow aimed at where

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the berries ripened and fell."

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