WEBVTT

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There's another
piece of prose I want

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to read between those
two books of poems

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and the two books that followed.

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This is a piece called
"The Baptist Singers."

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Each time the varnish
of the carriage fills me

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with a profound but unexpected
delight such as rises

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from the sudden recollection
of something loved in childhood

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and long forgotten.

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The luster of the
varnish is so deep

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that it appears to have its
own source of light, which

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moves under the surface,
approaches, fades, divides,

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and comes together and
disappears according

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to a pleasure of its own.

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The motions of the
light bear witness

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to something in the
nature of the carriage

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and to some appearances of
the world that it passes.

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But however closely
they are watched,

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their play looks as though
it were independent of both.

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And I realize each time,
when it is too late,

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that the motions of the
light and the varnish have

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so captivated me that I cannot
say with any certainty what

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color the varnish is.

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I know it is dark.

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Some opalescent shade
scarcely distinguished

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from black but not black.

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And on the side of the carriage
in an arc like a rainbows

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are the words the
singers in blue letters

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edged with little flames
of green and gold.

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And under them is
a painting of John

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the Baptist standing thigh
deep in the sky blue Jordan.

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The horses are dark
too but not black.

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And their wine red
harness and the carriage

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itself stream with white
ribbons tied in little bows.

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In the carriage,
the four singers

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face each other: two
women, one young and pale,

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the other with a darker
complexion and heavy features.

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Both of them in the wide
bonnets of another time.

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Both of them in long
gloves with which they hold

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their stringed instruments.

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They are riding backwards.

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Across from them, a portly man
in a tall hat and a ginger coat

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and a boy in black
velvet are sitting,

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the boy holding a flute.

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All four of them appear
to be laughing merrily

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at their own conversation.

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Their heads nod, but
nothing can be heard.

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The footman raises the long
coach horn, but if he blows it,

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I cannot hear it.

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The coachman and his dark
coat drives on slowly,

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and the carriage moves on
as smoothly as a barge.

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The blue wheels turn on the
glassy surface of the road

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where rain has just fallen.

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The carriage glides along on
its reflection, the blue wheels

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spinning above and below making
no mark where they touch.

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And then very slowly,
the wheels begin

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to sink into their reflections.

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The rims disappear.

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The wheels above and
below share a lost segment

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that grows like the rising
of an invisible sun.

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And now the footman
is surely blowing

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his long, gleaming
horn, but there is not

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a sound to be heard as the
carriage sinks into itself.

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And the feet of John the Baptist
meet, stand on each other,

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and are washed away.

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And the Jordan is
swallowed up in the Jordan.

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And the singers in the singers.

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Only a piercing silence
rises from both coach horns

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and continues to echo
long after they themselves

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are out of sight.

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[APPLAUSE]

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