This one is called "Notes from the Air."
"A yak is a prehistoric cabbage, of that at least we
may be sure.
But tell us sages of the solarium, why
is that light still hidden back there among houseplants
and rubber sponges?
For surely, the blessed moment arrived at midday,
and now in mid-afternoon, lamps are lit
where it is late in the season.
And as it struggles now in its ground down into day,
complaints of voice at edges of the darkness, look it says.
It has to be this way and no other.
Time that one seizes and takes along with one
is running through the holes like sand from a bag.
And these sandy moments accusers are just
what our enemy ordered, the surly one
on his throne of impacted gold.
No matter if our tale be interesting or not,
whether children stop to listen, and through the rent
veil of the air, the immortal whistle is heard and screeches,
songs not meant to be listened to,
it was some stranger's casual words
overheard in the windblown street
above the roar of the traffic and then swept
to the distant orbit where words hover.
Alone it says, but you slept.
And now everything is being redeemed, even the square
of barren grass that adjoins your doorstep too near for you
to see.
But others children and others will when the right time comes.
Meanwhile we mingle, and not because we have to,
because some host or hostess has suggested it
beyond the limits of polite conversation.
And we, they too, were conscious of having
known it, written on the fly leaf of a book presented
as a gift at Christmas 1882.
No more trivia, please.
But music in all the spheres leading up
to where the master wants to talk to you.
Place his mouth over yours.
Withdraw that human fish hook from the crystalline flesh
where it was melting.
Give you back your clothes, penknife, twine.
And where should we go when we leave?
What tree is bigger than night that
surrounds us is full of more things, fewer paths for the eye
and fingers of frost for the mind?
Fruits halved for our despairing instruction.
Winds to suck us up.
If only the boiler hadn't exploded,
one could summon them.
Icicles out of the rain, chair is enough for everyone
to be seated in time for the lesson to begin."