I'll read two more poems from this.
This is titled "Middle Distance."
I mean, this is a book in which enjambment, and space, word,
gap, syllable are all characters,
so it's hard to see without seeing what's enjambed
and what's not.
And I'm trying to read some of the silences.
This is titled "Middle Distance."
"This is certain.
Dream has no friends.
Bottom is there, but depth conceals it.
Centuries cannot see us.
Here, in liberty.
Enter others.
What are these eyes for?
What are these hands for?
I have been listening.
A long time-- looks around.
The frontier "labyrinth"-- gestures.
All the people in history--
gestures further.
The heart in my throat--
spotlight on wilderness.
Then their eyes were opened and they knew
and it vanished from sight.
This is certain.
Dream will not vector, is illegitimate, hangs over us
huge dry wings, suffers with us, grows worse,
is not identical with awareness, often lies under the cathedral
floor, ought to spare us, oh surely
it ought to spare us, entertaining brevity
like a sweet curiosity, always the wings opening and closing
at a constant rate, as if nothing were happening, never
beckoning or imploring why do we stay, has a sharpness,
is raven dark, perhaps weak eyesight,
is humble, is authentic--
though, of course, in the inaudible.
Usually in bed at night the wings tie down,
you can hear them like a growing of the dark,
although all of it, of course, stays the same--
none of the letters have been saved.
This is certain-- inwardgoingness
of the soul that won't lie down.
Vague gods, no possible restoration of order.
Bright city held at the hinge of the wings,
remembered touch, weary hands, flame snapping the air
in its one body of bright singularity,
dust on the fire becoming fire.
And how we shall be obedient?
Dust on the fire, on the seeming apple,
in hand, in the wake of the wings--
"speechless sorrowing of nature."
You will get lost.
You will be left.
Bending over, looking for the trinket lost--
most quiet heaven.
Pale light of the reasons, soul walking
in circles, weary scribe.
Fly, I say, reins in the one hand,
you, now dislodging centuries, need me by offering yours,
suddenly, to free.
Wheel without faces on it happened to be.
And I'll end on "Underneath (13)."