branches among winter branches,
Guttural whistle and up,
December violets crooked at my feet,
Cloud-wedge starting to slide like a detached retina
Slanting across the blue
inaction the dove disappears in.
Â
Mean constellations quip and annoy
next night against the same sky
As I seek out, unsuccessfully,
In Lukeâs spyglass Halleyâs comet and its train of ice:
An ordered and measured affection is virtuous
In its clean cause
however it comes close in this life.
Nothing else moves toward us out of the stars,
nothing else shines.
â 12 December 1985
Â
âI am poured out like water.
Who wouldnât ask for that lightning strike ,
the dogâs breath on your knee
Seductive and unrehearsed,
The heart resoftened and made apt for illumination,
The body then taken up and its ghostly eyes dried?
Who wouldnât ask for that light,
that liquefaction and entry?
Â
The pentimento ridge line and bulk
Of the Blue Ridge emerge
behind the vanished over-paint
Of the fall leaves across the street,
Cross-hatched and hard-edged, deep blue on blue.
What is a life of contemplation worth in this world?
How far can you go if you concentrate,
how far down?
Â
The afternoon shuts its doors.
The heart tightens its valves,
the dragon maple sunk in its bones,
The grass asleep in its wheel.
The year squeezes to this point, the cold
Hung like a lantern against the dark
burn of a syllable:
I roll it around on my tongue, I warm its edges â¦
â25 December 1985
Light Journal
To speak the prime word and vanish
into the aneurysm
Unhealed and holding the walls open,
Trip and thump of light
up from the fingernails and through
The slack locks and stripped vessels
At last to the inarticulation of desire â¦
Â
Â
What did I think I meant then, Greece, 1959:
Beauty is in the looking for it,
The light here filtered through silk,
The water moving like breathing,
Moving in turn to the tideâs turn,
black thread through the water weave.
Â
Whatever it was, I still mean it.
Â
Â
Everyone stands by himself
on the heart of the earth,
Pierced through by a ray of sunlight:
And suddenly itâs evening.
Â
Â
Itâs odd what persists
slip-grained in the memory,
Candescent and held fast,
Odd how for twenty-six years the someone I was once has stayed
Stopped in the columns of light
Through S. Zenoâs doors,
trying to take the next step and break clear â¦
A Journal of One Significant Landscape
April again. Aries comes forth
and we are released
Into the filter veins and vast line
Under the elm and apple wood.
The last of the daffodils
Sulphurs the half-jade grass
against the arbor vitae.
Â
Better the bodying forth,
better the coming back.
I listen to what the quince hums,
Its music filling my ear
with its flushed certitude.
Wild onion narrows the latitudes.
Â
I pale and I acquiesce.
Gravity empties me
Stem by stem through its deep regalia,
Resplendent and faintly anodyne,
The green of my unbecoming
urging me earthward.
Â
I long to escape through the white light in the rose root,
At ease in its clean, clear joy:
Unlike the spring flowers, I donât unfold, one petal
after another, in solitudeâ
Happiness happens, like sainthood, in spite of ourselves.
Â
Â
The day dies like a small child,
blushed and without complaint,
Its bedcovers sliding quietly to the floor.
How still the worldâs room holds,
everything stemming its breath
In exhilaration and sadness.
Â
Â
Halfway through May and I am absolved,
A litter of leaves like half notes
held tight in the singing trees.
Against the board fence, the candle tips of the white pines
Gutter and burn, gutter and burn
on the blue apse of the sky.
Â
How do we get said what must be said,
Seep of the honeysuckle like bad water, yellow
And slick, through the privet hedge,
tiger iris opening like an eye
Watching us steadily now, aware that what we see
Â
In its disappearance and
Guttural whistle and up,
December violets crooked at my feet,
Cloud-wedge starting to slide like a detached retina
Slanting across the blue
inaction the dove disappears in.
Â
Mean constellations quip and annoy
next night against the same sky
As I seek out, unsuccessfully,
In Lukeâs spyglass Halleyâs comet and its train of ice:
An ordered and measured affection is virtuous
In its clean cause
however it comes close in this life.
Nothing else moves toward us out of the stars,
nothing else shines.
â 12 December 1985
Â
âI am poured out like water.
Who wouldnât ask for that lightning strike ,
the dogâs breath on your knee
Seductive and unrehearsed,
The heart resoftened and made apt for illumination,
The body then taken up and its ghostly eyes dried?
Who wouldnât ask for that light,
that liquefaction and entry?
Â
The pentimento ridge line and bulk
Of the Blue Ridge emerge
behind the vanished over-paint
Of the fall leaves across the street,
Cross-hatched and hard-edged, deep blue on blue.
What is a life of contemplation worth in this world?
How far can you go if you concentrate,
how far down?
Â
The afternoon shuts its doors.
The heart tightens its valves,
the dragon maple sunk in its bones,
The grass asleep in its wheel.
The year squeezes to this point, the cold
Hung like a lantern against the dark
burn of a syllable:
I roll it around on my tongue, I warm its edges â¦
â25 December 1985
Light Journal
To speak the prime word and vanish
into the aneurysm
Unhealed and holding the walls open,
Trip and thump of light
up from the fingernails and through
The slack locks and stripped vessels
At last to the inarticulation of desire â¦
Â
Â
What did I think I meant then, Greece, 1959:
Beauty is in the looking for it,
The light here filtered through silk,
The water moving like breathing,
Moving in turn to the tideâs turn,
black thread through the water weave.
Â
Whatever it was, I still mean it.
Â
Â
Everyone stands by himself
on the heart of the earth,
Pierced through by a ray of sunlight:
And suddenly itâs evening.
Â
Â
Itâs odd what persists
slip-grained in the memory,
Candescent and held fast,
Odd how for twenty-six years the someone I was once has stayed
Stopped in the columns of light
Through S. Zenoâs doors,
trying to take the next step and break clear â¦
A Journal of One Significant Landscape
April again. Aries comes forth
and we are released
Into the filter veins and vast line
Under the elm and apple wood.
The last of the daffodils
Sulphurs the half-jade grass
against the arbor vitae.
Â
Better the bodying forth,
better the coming back.
I listen to what the quince hums,
Its music filling my ear
with its flushed certitude.
Wild onion narrows the latitudes.
Â
I pale and I acquiesce.
Gravity empties me
Stem by stem through its deep regalia,
Resplendent and faintly anodyne,
The green of my unbecoming
urging me earthward.
Â
I long to escape through the white light in the rose root,
At ease in its clean, clear joy:
Unlike the spring flowers, I donât unfold, one petal
after another, in solitudeâ
Happiness happens, like sainthood, in spite of ourselves.
Â
Â
The day dies like a small child,
blushed and without complaint,
Its bedcovers sliding quietly to the floor.
How still the worldâs room holds,
everything stemming its breath
In exhilaration and sadness.
Â
Â
Halfway through May and I am absolved,
A litter of leaves like half notes
held tight in the singing trees.
Against the board fence, the candle tips of the white pines
Gutter and burn, gutter and burn
on the blue apse of the sky.
Â
How do we get said what must be said,
Seep of the honeysuckle like bad water, yellow
And slick, through the privet hedge,
tiger iris opening like an eye
Watching us steadily now, aware that what we see
Â
In its disappearance and
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