lxxviii. (the texas rise)

the extension of shrub to scrub
to stream, and the willow drooping over them,

burning, the air thick, and unyielding
the light, unforgiving--swallows shadow

the leaves sway, and stream-bed sucks
effluent and overflow, the shadows fall

benediction, only in the cleft, between
properties--the long avenue, the burning

lawns--the endless street from plain to
plain, to fence, to copse, to plain

to school, to step--to walls and windows,
the heat claims everything, even its absence

the horizon wavers, offers more plain and more, but
absorbed, digested--the heat suffuses, all things

makes all things, itself

all futures, teaches this: the outstretched hand, the
steady step, when the world is burning

is the measure of anything that matters, it could
all blur, it could all fade, swirl--compress

down, this one point, moving--measures
the rest, never so grand, never so broad, never so wide
the world might swirl, fall into one place and consume
lawns and gates and plains together,

in movement, desire broken
free of its delineation, the sun will fade
before memory, the heat rise and break
on the quiet axe of unmet need

remade, exiled--sundered on the cleft
of a different place, and its attendant worlds
and wants

lxxvii.

the heat hazes, the dust on the windshield,
the figures blur, sometimes--

the figuration of lights, at no interval
heuristic unto the moment,

the cars flock, they flow, they brake,
at the line--the light burns

sense, from the pattern--these things
hold sense:

the flat of the sole on the ground
the shadow, aslant, step and stride
the fingers, clutch and fall,
the eyes to blur and clear

these things do not hold sense:
the glow upon the grass, the
stars rise, the lights hang, and fall
across the glass--these things do not
hold sense:

the cricket's beat, the sun's blaze cut
the whispering in the weeds, the morning's
pale blue light, the night's indigo glory

these things do not hold sense:
the murmured conversation, the broken
syllables, the reeds which catch them, ditches
damp, in the evening, the moment in the lee of
the light, under the eaves, the clouds of smoke--
the words fall, they fail, these things hold sense:

the burn in your calves, the fingers aching,
clenching--these things hold sense: the lingering
sense of direction, the fading guidepost of
memory, the aching shape of what is
missing--these things hold no sense:

sleep: the quite, unbroken silence, of the dark--the
strange anticipation (crickets blare) of early dawn,
the wheel-wells rumble, up a familiar cliff, the mountain
dry and gleaming, the raven's call, the gloaming
rising tide of hope, the benches worn, sea-beaten grain,
the easy availability of vision, over the walls, toward the
sea, the comfortable space, reserved and waiting, so easy
to slip into--these things hold no sense,

the sense of waiting, of being waited on, but these things
hold sense: the glimmer, and the haze that rose from these
things, and the sense of waiting, the desperate, burning
searching--we will burn ourselves to remember the night

lxxvi.

in one march, a long time ago
the table was long,

and the breeze whispered through
a crack in the window

I sweat, and I saw through the long
hallway, a hand

over the ocean, long and nimble
so--the fate and failure of reach

long and nimble, and all the halls
were windows, and the windows
were halls, and I wept

for every light in the sky, and its
mad flung capacity,

ranging, but we choke, we fall
along the border, still--

the heat, lay across the table like
a person, in the bottom of the cup

the leaves say this:

one moment of wrongness is enough
to bring the mountain to the sea, but not enough
to bring hand to hand,

it will burn, the fall


---

not enough to bring life to the day, nor the days
thereafter, only in these

similar moments of madness, enough to bring
the hand to the mind, never mind it, but enough
to bring the hand to the mind, regardless--

no account that, nevertheless, enough, but only
in these similar moments of madness

not enough, but when madness falls to
subjunctive madness--then

lxxv.

the dry air will choke out
the most reasonable

of delusions, the lights
flicker upon a thousand histories

slouched against the vinyl, legs
stretched out,

constrained by art, slumped
over the tufted plastic,

molded particle-board,

--time will make virtue of
any misstep that lasts, any
precept that travels as far
as the fingers--

--someone will say, I
used to think like that,

the wings shake, maybe the sky
alleviates itself of such a
limited definition,

sends you stumbling, into halls
made by human hands, sure, as a
finger in your eye, reminding you,

that art is so much, slam yourself
against the window,

such the power of that art, that the world itself
is made of windows, and I would
bleed on them, broken--but that is such a
sliver of nothing.

---

it could be a kind of birth, but the moment
drags, against the air--

until it is all but dead, and
releases, then

lxxiv.

if it spins wild, mad
and turns,

                if you turn,
your face--from the

from mine, the lights
high upon

the balcony, the whirl
of feet, in the circle

will tell you, if
corners become
        impossible

rooms where the smoke
curls high, the word drifts
down,

if you carry a knife, sunk
among the scraps, I

gather them from around
the blade--the world might
wait awhile

for us, caught in the branches
of dogwood, hanging low over
the street
                hung from this moment

or the next,

for now, if it spins, I will see you
in the black, frames the sky,

imagine, in the girders, below
the drape--just beyond the edge

of sight, this breath and the next,
for a moment--world enough

it might wait, never expected
nevertheless

lxxiii.

if consigned to memory
                       recursion

I lay these words,
as carefully as I once
laid my days--

you became symbol

when the boughs were falling
flying in the street,

fallen across the lanes, green
and broken, the towers blowing,

green, over the hillside,

lxxii.

it fell off of my desk,

the broken stems,
the dirt on the carpet
the sharp scent of greenery

--I smell it from the doorway

---

the frame creaks against the sill,
the imprint of the wind

falls along the sides of this building
whips into the circle,
it rises, rushing and empty
up the verge

through the dark in the needles,
cut by the gate