(xxxiii)

The things in quotes are from a song by David Gray--"Now and Always". Good song. Borrowing more than a little glory--was listening to it as I was writing, and couldn't quite resist.

---

the neighbor's chickens hop along the fence,

snatching at the bamboo

I pick through a bowl of lettuce

watching the sun through the leaves

clear and liquid, sinking below

the roof of the shed

"...would that these demons

would let me rest--

the women lie till the day they die."

I lean against the table, and stare at your darkened window

the pale tree rising behind it

(the winds stripped it, a month ago)

through the bare branches, the sparse blue of the sky

some of the lemons have fallen,

we bring them inside, although they're misshapen

nobody has any money.

"the swans like ghosts on the jet black water,

we'll glide like ghosts on the starry water,

--the docks are burning away..."

you--my drifting anchor

how long since you've been here?

do you scent my want, I wonder--

and fear it, forsake this harbor

for where no one is waiting

"you're in my mind, baby, now and always

the road I'm walking might fall away..."

I have idled here so long,

here, between the dirt and sky

behind the wall of leaves

I see dusk roll over the hills

the wires rising and falling across them

and beyond this valley, the burning winter cold

--the mocking futility...

I remember other winters--huddled over the steaming hood

the utter impossibility of one thing, small and warm--

stealing itself from grip of the wind

if I waver, here, in the ebb and flow

of your absence--

I am washed clean by your ghost

Virgo

the stars gather under the window

and worlds spin among the shelves

as the leaves brush the glass

the sun falls over my legs

as it fell over the running-boards

and the vinyl, and drew lines

between the aspen--sharp

the fabric on these cushions

is rough and soft, as the burr of

an old guitar,

it's case bleaching by the window

the dust and dew and fabric

the plywood shelves--are dusky

and sweet as smoke blowing back

through the gap

and the road running along beside

endless restless motion, and crumpled maps

sprawling across the carpet

dirt and light--singing, rough and sweetly

and the smell of late afternoon in the summer

--things flawed and grimed with use

and the window left cracked open

Humboldt

I remember you
all across the rounded mountains
where the sun blazes soft in the grass
and shadows carpet the slopes

where the fog hangs heavy in the inlets
where the country breaks free
of the highway and fences
and the houses hang low against the sky

far from the temerity
and tangled stands of buildings
the sky scraped and bruised
the canyons and their jagged wash
of houses, the angled rivers
and all their gleaming refuse

where the sun dives clean into the water
instead of falling, flailing into the hills
where night comes without dying
and things pass into each other unbroken

I remember you are the light, flickering
out over the water
licking the waves and rocks, together
if I come some cold northern night
to the damp sand beneath your beam
what I trace--will you light it?
when the tide carries it into the dark

broken buildings

the weary memories

trudging in the shadows

rustle, under the leaves

--I skim an hour

as the breeze rests

lazy across the walk

water frozen in the cracks

spring rushing, in the gutters

ten thousand small tragedies

cracked off my jaw,

gravel of the mind

between the dark rise of the future

and the desire for things

that have slipped between my fingers

--I dream a better kind of want

so grim

I glare up into the fronds

eyes like an unclenching fist

to catch the starlight

this soul is weary of walking on rubble

of perching hunched

on the bare framework still standing

of hoarding pieces and ends

--I would if I could fall slowly

light beyond the shadows

not reflect coldly

on far-off skies and broken buildings

geese

for you--I think the geese in winter

would suffice

fat and scavenging at the edge of the ice

the only birds to weather

that bitter season

... (xxxii).

... and the cup of life is short indeed

and thin and sour the greater taste

of each small portion

like all who live, I am in love with Fate

but while I live, I'd bewilder, baffle

and make her wait

while I go out, to sleep with Fortune.

... (xxxi).

when you walk the sidewalk like a plank

why trust to

the doom creaking along your soles?

why fear--why worry?

when the sky can weep for you only

and in one valley

when the clouds whisper

impending benedictions--across your eyes

when you can shadow the palm-trees

with your palm, thrust up to grasp the sky

the world is large--

but what blurring horizon is greater

than the span of your arms?

--when you can cast your shadow

farther than your breath

and no fist can come closer

than your face

--when you words fall as dust

unseen, below the feet of others

burnt to ash--

from ash and dust man is made