incisions the central perimeter
Our imaginations’ orbit. Other words,
Old ways are but the trappings and appurtenances
Meant to install change around us like a grotto.
There is nothing laughable
In this. To isolate the kernel of
Our imbalance and at the same time back up carefully;
Its tulip head whole, an imagined good.
The sense of that day toward its center
Is perforated or crisscrossed with rewards
As though the stumbling that stranded me here were
The means of some spontaneity. But upper pressures
Lifted the direction of the prevailing winds
Allowing an awaited entrance down below.
Yet all is different metric system
Flapping from grace to intense surprise.
As in a tub. No candle is lit. No theory
Straps it to the maturity of surroundings.
Its landscape puts toward a pointed roof
Continuing inquiry and reappraisal of always new
Facts pushing past into bright cold
As from general spindles a waterfall of data
Is absorbed above by command. Whether construed
As lead or gold it leaves a ring
On the embellished, attendant time. The farms
Knew it, that is why they stood so still.
The gold might reverse them to fields
Of flowering sand or black, ancient and intimate.
The volcanic entrance to an antechamber
Was not what either of us meant.
More outside than before, but what is worse, outside
Within the periphery, we are confronted
With one another, and our meeting escapes through the dark
Like a well.
Our habits ask us for instructions.
The news is to return by stages
Of uncertainty, too early or too late. It is the invisible
Shapes, the bed’s confusion and prattling. The late quiet. This is how it feels.
The pictures were really pictures
Of loving and small things. There was a winter scene
And half-hidden sketches of the other three seasons.
Autumn was a giant with a gray woollen cap.
Near him was spring, a girl in green draperies
Half sitting, half standing near the trunk of an old tree.
Summer was a band of nondescript children
Bordering the picture of winter, which was indistinct
And gray like the sky of a winter afternoon.
The other pictures told in an infinity of tiny ways
Stories of the past: separate incidents
Recounted in touching detail, or vast histories
Murmured confusingly, as though the speaker
Were choked by sighs and tears, and had forgotten
The reason why he was telling the story.
It was these finally that made the strongest
Impression, they shook you like wind
Roaring through branches with no leaves left on them.
The vagueness was bigger than life and its apotheosis
Of shining incidents, colored or dark, vivid or serious.
But now the tidings are dark in the
Expected late afternoon suddenly dipping into
Reserves of anxiety and restlessness which dutifully
Puff out these late, lax sails, pennants;
The vertical black-and-white-striped weather indicator’s
One sign of triumph, a small one, to stand
For universal concessions, charters and deeds to
Wilderness or the forested sea, cord after cord
Equaling possession and possessiveness
Instantaneously extending your hesitation to an
Empire, back lands whose sparsely populated look is
Supreme dominion. It will be divided into tracks
And these be lived in the way now the lowered
Angles of this room. Waxed moustache against the impiety
Of so much air of change, but always and nowhere
A cave. Gradually old letters used as bookmarks
Inform the neighbors; an approximate version
Circulates and the incident is officially closed.
And I some joy of this have, returning to the throbbing
Mirror’s stiff enclave, the sides of my face steep and overrun.
So many ways grew over to this
Mild decline. The grave of authority
Matches wits with upward-spinning lemon spirals
Telling of the influences of night, so many decisions
Not to act accruing to the outward stretches.
The civilities of day also creep
To extremities, fly on a windowpane, sweeping
The changed refuse under the rug. Just one step
Takes
Our imaginations’ orbit. Other words,
Old ways are but the trappings and appurtenances
Meant to install change around us like a grotto.
There is nothing laughable
In this. To isolate the kernel of
Our imbalance and at the same time back up carefully;
Its tulip head whole, an imagined good.
The sense of that day toward its center
Is perforated or crisscrossed with rewards
As though the stumbling that stranded me here were
The means of some spontaneity. But upper pressures
Lifted the direction of the prevailing winds
Allowing an awaited entrance down below.
Yet all is different metric system
Flapping from grace to intense surprise.
As in a tub. No candle is lit. No theory
Straps it to the maturity of surroundings.
Its landscape puts toward a pointed roof
Continuing inquiry and reappraisal of always new
Facts pushing past into bright cold
As from general spindles a waterfall of data
Is absorbed above by command. Whether construed
As lead or gold it leaves a ring
On the embellished, attendant time. The farms
Knew it, that is why they stood so still.
The gold might reverse them to fields
Of flowering sand or black, ancient and intimate.
The volcanic entrance to an antechamber
Was not what either of us meant.
More outside than before, but what is worse, outside
Within the periphery, we are confronted
With one another, and our meeting escapes through the dark
Like a well.
Our habits ask us for instructions.
The news is to return by stages
Of uncertainty, too early or too late. It is the invisible
Shapes, the bed’s confusion and prattling. The late quiet. This is how it feels.
The pictures were really pictures
Of loving and small things. There was a winter scene
And half-hidden sketches of the other three seasons.
Autumn was a giant with a gray woollen cap.
Near him was spring, a girl in green draperies
Half sitting, half standing near the trunk of an old tree.
Summer was a band of nondescript children
Bordering the picture of winter, which was indistinct
And gray like the sky of a winter afternoon.
The other pictures told in an infinity of tiny ways
Stories of the past: separate incidents
Recounted in touching detail, or vast histories
Murmured confusingly, as though the speaker
Were choked by sighs and tears, and had forgotten
The reason why he was telling the story.
It was these finally that made the strongest
Impression, they shook you like wind
Roaring through branches with no leaves left on them.
The vagueness was bigger than life and its apotheosis
Of shining incidents, colored or dark, vivid or serious.
But now the tidings are dark in the
Expected late afternoon suddenly dipping into
Reserves of anxiety and restlessness which dutifully
Puff out these late, lax sails, pennants;
The vertical black-and-white-striped weather indicator’s
One sign of triumph, a small one, to stand
For universal concessions, charters and deeds to
Wilderness or the forested sea, cord after cord
Equaling possession and possessiveness
Instantaneously extending your hesitation to an
Empire, back lands whose sparsely populated look is
Supreme dominion. It will be divided into tracks
And these be lived in the way now the lowered
Angles of this room. Waxed moustache against the impiety
Of so much air of change, but always and nowhere
A cave. Gradually old letters used as bookmarks
Inform the neighbors; an approximate version
Circulates and the incident is officially closed.
And I some joy of this have, returning to the throbbing
Mirror’s stiff enclave, the sides of my face steep and overrun.
So many ways grew over to this
Mild decline. The grave of authority
Matches wits with upward-spinning lemon spirals
Telling of the influences of night, so many decisions
Not to act accruing to the outward stretches.
The civilities of day also creep
To extremities, fly on a windowpane, sweeping
The changed refuse under the rug. Just one step
Takes
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