One of the public problems with these poems
is that they're so short.
And when you read them, they tend to sort of go past you.
I mean, there may be other private problems with them.
But so I tend to kind of-- well, I
pause a lot between the poems, hoping
that whatever little resonance there may be
will trickle out to you, before I lay another one on you.
I think it's time now to try another one.
I'm going to call it "Sentences,"
which is four sentences.
The ash fish has been away for a long time now,
the snow transparent.
The white cane rakes back and forth
in the hush, no sweet sound from the leaves.
Whatever is dead stays dead.
The lighted and cold blue blank pavilions of the sky.
The sand, the crystal's ring in the bushy ear--
voices logy with sleep, their knapsacks
the color of nothing, full of the great spaces they still
must cross.
The trees take care of their own salvation,
and rocks swell with their business--
and there, on the clean cloth of the river,
a Host is floating without end.
Heaven, that stray dog, eats on the run and keeps moving.