sunlight,
luminous with attritions of light, the failure
of matter in the steadiness of light,
a purification, not burning away,
nothing so violent, something clearer
that stings and stings and is then
past pain or this slow levitation of joy.
And to emerge, where the juniper
is simply juniper and there is the smell
of new shingle, a power saw outside
and inside a woman in the bath,
a scent of lemon and a drift of song,
a heartfelt imitation of Bessie Smith.
The given, as in given up
or given out, as in testimony.
Â
Â
T HE I MAGE
The child brought blue clay from the creek
and the woman made two figures: a lady and a deer.
At that season deer came down from the mountain
and fed quietly in the redwood canyons.
The woman and the child regarded the figure of the lady,
the crude roundness, the grace, the coloring like shadow.
They were not sure where she came from,
except the childâs fetching and the womanâs hands
and the lead-blue clay of the creek
where the deer sometimes showed themselves at sundown.
Â
Â
T HE F EAST
The lovers loitered on the deck talking,
the men who were with men and the men who were with new women,
a little shrill and electric, and the wifely women
who had repose and beautifully lined faces
and coppery skin. She had taken the turkey from the oven
and her friends were talking on the deck
in the steady sunshine. She imagined them
drifting toward the food, in small groups, finishing
sentences, lifting a pickle or a sliver of turkey,
nibbling a little with unconscious pleasure. And
she imagined setting it out artfully, the white meat,
the breads, antipasti, the mushrooms and salad
arranged down the oak counter cleanly, and how they all came
as in a dance when she called them. She carved meat
and then she was crying. Then she was in darkness
crying. She didnât know what she wanted.
Â
Â
T HE P URE O NES
Roads to the north of here are dry.
First red buds prick out the lethal spring
and corncrakes, swarming, lower in clouds
above the fields from Paris to Béziers.
This is Godâs harvest: the village boy
whose tongue was sliced in two,
the village crones slashing cartilage
at the knees to crawl to Carcassonne.
âIf the world were not evil in itself,
the blessed one said, then every choice
would not constitute a loss.
This sickness of this age is flesh,
he said. Therefore we build with stone.
The dead with their black lips are heaped
on one another, intimate as lovers.
Â
Â
T HE G ARDEN OF D ELIGHT
The floor hurts so much it whines
whichever way they step,
as if it had learned the trick
of suffering.
Poor floor.
This is the garden of delight,
a man pointing at a woman
and a bird perched
on a cylinder of crystal
watching. She has a stopper
in her mouth or the paint
has blistered, long ago, just there.
He looks worried, but not terrified,
not terrified, and he doesnât move.
Itâs an advantage of paintings.
You donât have to.
I used to name the flowersâ
beard tongue, stonecrop,
pearly everlasting.
Â
Â
S ANTA L UCIA
I.
Art & love: he camps outside my door,
innocent, carnivorous. As if desire
were actually a flute, as if the little song
transcend, transcend could get you anywhere.
He brings me wine; he believes in the arts
and uses them for beauty. He brings me
vinegar in small earthen pots, postcards
of the hillsides by Cézanne desire has left
alone, empty farms in August and the vague
tall chestnut trees at Jas de Bouffan, fetal
sandstone rifted with mica from the beach.
He brings his body, wolfish, frail,
all brown for summer like croissant crusts
at La Seine in the Marina, the bellies
of pelicans I watched among white dunes
under Pico Blanco on the Big Sur coast.
It sickens me, this glut & desperation.
II.
Walking the Five Springs trail, I tried to think.
Dead-nettle, thimbleberry. The fog heaved in
between the pines, violet sparrows
luminous with attritions of light, the failure
of matter in the steadiness of light,
a purification, not burning away,
nothing so violent, something clearer
that stings and stings and is then
past pain or this slow levitation of joy.
And to emerge, where the juniper
is simply juniper and there is the smell
of new shingle, a power saw outside
and inside a woman in the bath,
a scent of lemon and a drift of song,
a heartfelt imitation of Bessie Smith.
The given, as in given up
or given out, as in testimony.
Â
Â
T HE I MAGE
The child brought blue clay from the creek
and the woman made two figures: a lady and a deer.
At that season deer came down from the mountain
and fed quietly in the redwood canyons.
The woman and the child regarded the figure of the lady,
the crude roundness, the grace, the coloring like shadow.
They were not sure where she came from,
except the childâs fetching and the womanâs hands
and the lead-blue clay of the creek
where the deer sometimes showed themselves at sundown.
Â
Â
T HE F EAST
The lovers loitered on the deck talking,
the men who were with men and the men who were with new women,
a little shrill and electric, and the wifely women
who had repose and beautifully lined faces
and coppery skin. She had taken the turkey from the oven
and her friends were talking on the deck
in the steady sunshine. She imagined them
drifting toward the food, in small groups, finishing
sentences, lifting a pickle or a sliver of turkey,
nibbling a little with unconscious pleasure. And
she imagined setting it out artfully, the white meat,
the breads, antipasti, the mushrooms and salad
arranged down the oak counter cleanly, and how they all came
as in a dance when she called them. She carved meat
and then she was crying. Then she was in darkness
crying. She didnât know what she wanted.
Â
Â
T HE P URE O NES
Roads to the north of here are dry.
First red buds prick out the lethal spring
and corncrakes, swarming, lower in clouds
above the fields from Paris to Béziers.
This is Godâs harvest: the village boy
whose tongue was sliced in two,
the village crones slashing cartilage
at the knees to crawl to Carcassonne.
âIf the world were not evil in itself,
the blessed one said, then every choice
would not constitute a loss.
This sickness of this age is flesh,
he said. Therefore we build with stone.
The dead with their black lips are heaped
on one another, intimate as lovers.
Â
Â
T HE G ARDEN OF D ELIGHT
The floor hurts so much it whines
whichever way they step,
as if it had learned the trick
of suffering.
Poor floor.
This is the garden of delight,
a man pointing at a woman
and a bird perched
on a cylinder of crystal
watching. She has a stopper
in her mouth or the paint
has blistered, long ago, just there.
He looks worried, but not terrified,
not terrified, and he doesnât move.
Itâs an advantage of paintings.
You donât have to.
I used to name the flowersâ
beard tongue, stonecrop,
pearly everlasting.
Â
Â
S ANTA L UCIA
I.
Art & love: he camps outside my door,
innocent, carnivorous. As if desire
were actually a flute, as if the little song
transcend, transcend could get you anywhere.
He brings me wine; he believes in the arts
and uses them for beauty. He brings me
vinegar in small earthen pots, postcards
of the hillsides by Cézanne desire has left
alone, empty farms in August and the vague
tall chestnut trees at Jas de Bouffan, fetal
sandstone rifted with mica from the beach.
He brings his body, wolfish, frail,
all brown for summer like croissant crusts
at La Seine in the Marina, the bellies
of pelicans I watched among white dunes
under Pico Blanco on the Big Sur coast.
It sickens me, this glut & desperation.
II.
Walking the Five Springs trail, I tried to think.
Dead-nettle, thimbleberry. The fog heaved in
between the pines, violet sparrows
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