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