I. The Rising Rains
In the beginning, O virgin, what could I liken to you
that you would comfort me?
A blanket half-off the bed,
the beautiful damages of a lifetime,
each quarter gesture, been or was she hears,
words well-formed, eyelashes
wet and not by rain,
rain as glass,
stained glass over and over,
she is over me, over and over, the oblique
gestures of her face
as youthful as fists
or as amorous.
This very well could be the street, so a little affected
or assumed, over and over.
I do not know,
I do not know what you expect of me
in whispers, that I will in whispers like.
I have not love enough to say that I can not love you.
This shouting is not the shout of joy;
that is what you are to me.
I believe I have,
I have shivered and tired, not remembering where the desert begins.
This house is ingrained too much
into the March earth, it will not thaw,
it can not move and the world has strayed from me.
This very well could be the street.
Been or as she hears,
a problem in agreement—
subject and verb—there must be at the least of loneliness.
Emendations much different than achievement was ever.
I have lost already,
too many wives, the hero’s need of gravity,
glass as rain,
stained glass in each third gesture,
gestures in that I would disappear.
Disappear, now that I am the maiden,
a maiden as a blanket or eyelashes half-off the bed.
A plea in objection, ablative, askance,
or at first, didn’t it sound like sobbing to you?
II. How He Has Seen
Whose voice has it been? I am saying,
“Mountains coming from all directions:
Masada, Markham, make him your instrument.
Playing instruments as well as crumbling ever could.
He will go far, very far as arrogant as disagreement,
farther and deeper and past vineyards,
not calling attention to his pain,
sentences longer or creased
as roads or valleys, over or under hills and valleys.
He would spend afternoons with trees, feeling
credulous perhaps encompassed or confident
in the boldness of his growing, apple trees,
swinging and falling from apple trees,
his hand in a vase, the other in a cloud.
Clouds becoming mountains
and air as thin as stones to skip.
Would he get around to that language again
(phrases tight and fragile enough as a shutter
from a camera) as he first met himself
in a room no larger than himself?
Men coming with other names, in other names,
borrowing or owning smiles as he tried,
Besides, it would be outside
the scope of my present vocation if I tried
to make any out of anything.
Swallowing moss, counting and counting, over and over
he saw flatness everywhere.
The key was gone; the lock is over.
Skipping, smoke and even the seas are dull as a chair or indifference.
This and that is flat and the mind empty with memories,
probably empty and memorable and hopeful as a last poem
so hopeful as someone was home praying over and over
and not counting.”
III. Parousia (Because We Belong Together)
I have listened and heard.
A language says, “Es tut mir leid, aber er ist tot,
aber er ist tot.”
But she has missed me: reduction as full as labor pains,
pain waiting longer than she has waited.
My body as a bottle of leaves
in a cupboard lined with grass.
Last line, first paragraph: this is the shouting of joy,
probable as leaves, bouquets as well as handmade flowers.
The pounding, she is still pounding
of a beat or murder. Whether was a murder,
on and on the drum drumming.
This house is ingrained too much,
it has strangely strayed from me,
and it will move just as the rain dies.
Our flowers are merely flowers, many colors
many colors as plain as one. They wait.
Impossible, yes, but she comes to me,
falling like a glory on my face.