xxxxxx.

it compels you to love
it,

it will never love you,

but, somewhere in the lineaments
that draw the moving,

teeming, of its muscles tense
you will find

that you love it, anyway

in its wayward motion,
in truth, in memory

it will never love you,
but will give

always a reason to love
it, again--

...xxxxxix.

and the rain fell on the just
and unjust like

the feet fall on the roof
shuffling, whispering--

and below, the cords twine
over the floorboards,

the lights hang on the hills
like a beacon, you know

sometimes they shower
sparks on the street,

they don't die, but
they fade,

along the gutters, in the
lee of the grove,

the branches whispered the
constellations, falling

and the street, glowing
hazed and hot,

and the shape of the wind
under the branches

loosed from the trunks and
branches, needles

falls into the street, whips
over the asphalt,

toward the hills, seems
to say, "hold"

"hold, for you
will live,

for you will live
again," and

goes, the shadow--

fell and spread across
the pavement,

and covered, but I watch
my shadow fall,

down the wall, and I say,
"you will live,

and you will live, you
will live again,"