Why do I come here anymore—
to be girted round with sweetness?
Or is it the contrast of stately figures,
Venus Adonis Apollo the XXIII?
Mirthful winds of song lie about my head.
And in winter, the time of dilation and obduration is
like a colloquy in rock, riven with raven weed,
stout with the foam of small streams, the babble
of wax birds. I come I suppose for a cicatrice
of characters pink around my mouth.
And for the murmuring of blood and sap
that beats in the vineyard, near the honey-well,
outisde the stoic-fashioned plant.
More real than the sun, I see letters
of bronze-lit stone suited with foreignness.
Their plain appurtenances: chaos and wind.
I come here for the grotto of fish.
The assorted bones of garbled limbs.
I come for shadow in a white eyelet.
The narrow brooks below rushing stars.
NOVEMBER 2008