xxxxxvi.

The exile, waiting:

            along the brick walls, I

watch the dark,

            running,

down to the street, to run

down to the river.

Someday, I will lose

my name,

            and the name that

was given me—

--but I will not, forget.

in the dark, and the drums click

deep in the beat, but

someday: I remember the streets

dark with water, deep

with earth, in their constellations

minerals, between them—

the window breaks the carpet

into sections,

I will not forget, though, I go

into sections,

xxxxxv.

rain in the desert
comes,

--tumbling into the valley

I do believe that water hanging

from the sagebrush

knows more of God than I do,

I do believe, the pines rising

in the rocks

know more of Heaven--

with the water pooling

in their roots--

I do think of the northern cliffs

sometimes, I do think

of falling—the lights

fall down into the gutter, and

the whole of history

is written in the asphalt,

cracked—and they run heavy

pebbled, and bright—

and the thundering--footsteps

(she walked into

the sea, like the lady

into the reeds, and that the ukulele

was missing, is the only saving

grace-)

a slender grace, this one, a slender

edge, a tenuous beat,

on the sidewalk, and a shallow

hope, certain, the film of water

xxxxxiv.

The word, extruded--
        from between our fingers
is not the signal,
nor the sign,
          of the coming,

of better than this:
in the dingy, and dark,
of the room--someone

lost, to the passing,
told me, about how there
was a singer, who

spent his whole life alone,
across the ocean,
near, but not touching, I

will grind my teeth, and fail
again, and over, if--
it can be found, in failure.

xxxxxiii.

if you must be forgot
--then I will not live on nothing
and, if you must be consigned
to the dark, after the day has gone--
then I will remember at the edge
of the evening,

and if I must turn from the parking lot,
to hide the glimmer, under the white
cold light of the lamps, still--

--I will stow, far from the harsh
light of the morning,
this store, and the train rumbles
past the houses,

--of memory

and the headlights blind me, but
in shadow at the edge of
the shrubs, and resting by the walls
      rising over the gravel, I will not

let you fall, unheeded, and I will shudder
in the stairwell,

under the lights, on the silent landing, I
will shake, as the steps rise

to the door, and my feet will whisper your
name, hesitating, across the slats and
the threshold--but

I will not fear, and I will remember you
when the windows blaze,
and the shadows damp the peaks--and false
stars light the valley, as the grass waves,
I will step over into you.

xxxxxii.

up to the wire fence, falling
into the dust of the hillside
I walk with the businessmen through the scrub
to a pile of stones

that was once a shrine.

later, I walk with the students
past it, over the last hump
we watch the stars wash over the ridges

and the valley, the fields are grey

in the hotel, there is a garden
made of plastic flowers
with a plywood arch.

it was a long way, slow
on the bus
to get out of the city

in the heat of the conference room
they do the butterfly dance,
from the south—

desert

sing a hymn--for those who fear in the desert
clear and carrying as sung by coyote
cutting across all the bleak expanses
that even the sun fails to delineate
clear and cool as a stream murmurring
between the boulders, nearby
promising you will rest in the shade
soft and clear as rain falling in the dust
clean and clear as wind blowing off the sea
the shape of other coastlines, buried in salt
clinging to its feathers

new moon

the sky is empty, and while the new moon

is covered by the low clouds, unseen

it draws up the waters within you

the shadow of what is near

obscures what is far, still

it draws up the waters within you

to be deprived of such a companion

it could make a strong man weep,

--how much more so a weak one?

in these years, the darkness unlit

lays heavy on the streets and houses

how are we to navigate the dark,

without the good proof, and temerity,

of a light that disregards,

the lien of the night?