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Grayscale breath on a fluid field, with lo-fi rainpatter—petrol blue—, a 60-watt sun uns -crewed from the woebegone sky: rip- rap & coal slurries, dragline & loess, what phosphor -us is a semaphore for, silklike in its acoustic shadows louver away, or stay when I move: figures astray from the mercury dark—shatterproofless, shutterproofless, image noise stressing each contour to strass— as if the margins were swarming with centers, or cinders —"Ecchoes to the Eye" — or Cinderella's slipper blown of poly- vinyl butyral & laminated glass

Be like a bear in the forest of yourself. Even sleeping you are powerful in your breath. Every hair has life and standing, as you do, swaying from one foot to the other all the forest stands with you. Each minute sound, one after another, is distinct in your ear. Here in the blur of mixed sensations, you can feel the crisp outline of being, particulate. Great as you are, huge as you are and growling like the deepest drum, the continual vibration that makes music what it is, not some light stone skipped on the surface of things, you travel below sounding the depths where only the dauntless go. Be like the bear and do not forget how you rounded your massive shape over the just ripened berry which burst in your mouth that moment how you rolled in the wet grass, cool and silvery, mingling with your sensate skin, how you shut your eyes and swam far and farther still, starlight shaping itself to your body, starship rocking the grand, slow waves under the white trees, in the snowy night.

Oh, de wars and de scrapes And de sprees am done—sprees am done De foe am beat. De Turks am drowned—Turks am drowned. All safe and sounds To our wives we come . . . — Otello , by T. D. Rice Dreams may come from the enemy— from the business of the past day— from a disordered body— from moral evil— from God, through the medium of the Angels, and departed saints, as forewarnings to stir up and prepare the mind for the scenes ahead. I fell into a slumber; and in it I dreamed that two devils entered the room, each with a chain in his hand; they laid hold on me, the one at my head, the other at my feet, and bound me fast, and breaking out the window, carried me a distance from the house and laid me on a spot of ice, and while the weaker devil flew off in flames of fire, the stronger one set out to carry me down to hell. I put my hands together and said, Lord I submit to go and preach thy gospel; only grant my peaceful hours to return, and open the door. Here I received the solemn news of the death of our only child. The vibration of the earth shook down the trees, thousands of willows were swept off like a pipe stem, about waist high, and the swamps became high ground, and high land became low ground, and two islands in the river were so shaken, washed away and sunk, as not to be found. From this I infer some trouble is at hand, But the film was already starting— The sounds came in waves, higher and higher, at the top of it someone screaming— Now what you call your great disappointment, I call the Great Awakeneing— When I heard (though not always in these old forgotten words I remember) the first of three visions— Yet if you tell me they are only my dear dead returning, I would not disbelieve you. 2. It is an odd sort of fortune to have lived an adventurous life. In my disgust, I left school and devoted all my blighted spirit to minstrelsy; I had no natural aptness for the banjo, but for dancing— such a remarkable gift few ever saw. The first part of our performances we gave with white faces; and by practicing to knock spin and toss the tambourine back in my room, I was now the “Scotch Girl” in plaid petticoats. Besides my Highland Fling, I took the principal lady parts in the negro ballets; for a lad, I danced “Lucy Long” so admirably a planter in one of the Southern States insisted on purchasing me, until the door-tender kicked that planter down the stairs. Old Ephraim was one of the most comical specimens of the negro species, the blackest face, largest mouth, whitest teeth; What could he do? Why, he could fetch water, black our boots, take care of our baggage. My father said of Howie Gray who worked beside him every day at the South Station PO and put both his sons through college, “He’s not an uppity Negro.” My father meant that as a compliment. There were tears in his eyes when Howie Gray died. 3. Every man his own radio— It hath been thought that the dying speeches of such as have been executed among us might be of singular use to correct the crimes wherein too many do live Billington, disregarding the commotion he was causing and the certainty of apprehension, reloaded and stalked his enemy. She concealed her crime until the time of her delivery, and then being delivered alone by her self in a dark room, she murdered the harmless and helpless infant. Foster didn’t say a word. He just picked up a steal boomer and smashed Pikin over the head with it. I went forth to be delivered in the field, and dropping my child by the side of a little pond (whether alive or stillborn I cannot tell), I covered it over with dirt and snow and speedily returned home. He struck the helpless Kling again and again Mr. Spooner strove to speak, when down, Brooks took him by the throat and partly strangled him. Ross and Buchanan came out. Ross took Mr. Spooner’s watch and gave it to Buchanan. Brooks and Ross took him up and put him in the well head first. Before they carried him away, I, Buchanan, pulled off his shoes. Eight streaks of splattered blood. Eight murderous strokes of an axe or knife. Was found, by a person with a dog, crossing the fields, in a piece of woods a little distance from Brandywine to the Turk’s Head, two dead infants. Now what you call your Great Awakening, I call Much Ado, I call The Big Sleep— But when did I become someone on whom everything is lost? Like the dream I lifted from my father like a Band-Aid— Where I checked hats, that instantly, embarrassingly disappeared— My earnest offers to return the $1.00 gratuity raining down on dead ears— I thought I was boyish. It availed me nothing.

And when her son never returned from the meant-to-crush-him camps, the crucible of Poland, always-hard-at-work Isa slept for endless hours, and once, under her lids, she was led, by diligent female Virgils, to a vast meadow where an inspirited Isa embraced, one by one, countless women who remained in mourning for their cherished sons. Gallant and stricken, together the myriad bereaved but defiant women formed an ever-widening circle, prodigal with bitter tears, and then, suddenly, like a jackdaw darting from eave to sun-drenched eave, something flew between the throats of the grieving, heart-gutted mothers, and a great beauty arose: In the dream, Isa recalled, the singing of the harrowed women with war-taken sons hushed the world's barrenness. In the dream, the startling river of sound altered the embattled earth.

M.A.K. September, 1880-September, 1955 As I wandered on the beach I saw the heron standing Sunk in the tattered wings He wore as a hunchback’s coat. Shadow without a shadow, Hung on invisible wires From the top of a canvas day, What scissors cut him out? Superimposed on a poster Of summer by the strand Of a long-decayed resort, Poised in the dusty light Some fifteen summers ago; I wondered, an empty child, “Heron, whose ghost are you?” I stood on the beach alone, In the sudden chill of the burned. My thought raced up the path. Pursuing it, I ran To my mother in the house And led her to the scene. The spectral bird was gone. But her quick eye saw him drifting Over the highest pines On vast, unmoving wings. Could they be those ashen things, So grounded, unwieldy, ragged, A pair of broken arms That were not made for flight? In the middle of my loss I realized she knew: My mother knew what he was. O great blue heron, now That the summer house has burned So many rockets ago, So many smokes and fires And beach-lights and water-glow Reflecting pinwheel and flare: The old logs hauled away, The pines and driftwood cleared From that bare strip of shore Where dozens of children play; Now there is only you Heavy upon my eye. Why have you followed me here, Heavy and far away? You have stood there patiently For fifteen summers and snows, Denser than my repose, Bleaker than any dream, Waiting upon the day When, like grey smoke, a vapor Floating into the sky, A handful of paper ashes, My mother would drift away.

Among the rain and lights I saw the figure 5 in gold on a red firetruck moving tense unheeded to gong clangs siren howls and wheels rumbling through the dark city.

All life long you are unhanding unhanding and unhanding what was handed you. All life long you throw out the line of life. You throw out the line, stinging up from your guts. Were they planting trees, your father and your mother? Did they ever plant? Is that a line of trees far away green line? All life long you include something that includes your life. You are in the egg. (                In the center of a picture, two angels hold a transparent crystal egg of teardrop shape. In the egg the ocean god is throned, left leg crossed over right, trident in right hand. Under his outstretched arms two children or little people stand, a boy at his right, a girl at his left. The boy’s head is crowned with a sun, the girl’s, with a crescent moon. That’s the middle level of the picture. At the top a blazing sun with human features dominates the vertical axis. At the bottom a man and a woman kneel on either side a furnace, man to the right of the furnace, woman to the left. In the furnace itself, directly below the egg containing the god, is suspended a similar egg, empty.                            ) All life long the dew falls from heaven all life long trees climb up from underground waters. In the seed of the old god the new gods are swarming. Earth is ready for planting. The shut eye is opening. The heat.

An owl once perched in my tree at night (when most birds cannot see). But when the sun rose, he was found by some crows, and their caws caused the owl to flee.

The evening empty as a convex coconut split down the seam: not that it can be filled. The evening empty as a gourd that twists on an iron thread: the rough skin of the sphere. .            .          .            .           . Not that there was a spoken word to recall the moment of seeing the short span when the clocks ceased to revolve and hands met in jest or benediction time of the vortex into which hibiscus and almond trees strayed and windows made of aluminum. The stars are suddenly remote candescent petals night throws above the yard, the beautiful things. .             .          .            .           . The great house is a hotel and a museum of victory how some lived at the epoch of planters and governors visible in the paintings the armchairs and gilded glass articulate artifacts and floors polished by daylight in a country of green hills and water wheels and wagons and sun coming out after a rain the labor is hidden that built the house long ago, and ploughed the land to make it bear fruit .             .          .            .           . In British poetry, gentle woodland creatures gaze at the hermit with marble eyes lit from within. A single bird defends the song. Among the pines draped with snow from the whole land only a secret footfall teases the senses awake like white breath on white canvas. Ideal forms crowd the auditorium. The sky deepens on the surface of a lake, in a cradle of stars. A coppice of isolated birch trees climbs the mountainside to touch the moon's scar, benevolent witness washed of color and fragmentary illuminating the village below. .             .          .            .           . In New World poetry, an invisible river runs this way and that. A car(t) eases on a bumpy track over small hills and into shallows. The world is a tangle of leaves. Towards sundown a driver gets out and pushes into the forest, drawn by a noise he cannot identify: perhaps the hiss of water below. It's only the river on its way. Ideal forms crowd the auditorium things present and things past scattered beneath the poinciana. The car heads into higher country then out into space where fields suddenly lie down beneath the seer cattle pastures and agricultural lands that have always been there watched over by the great house from its hilltop, like a sentinel. .             .          .            .           . In British poetry, the forms of desire darken with the change of seasons: green leaves once they fade and turn gold and fall to earth, and make a carpet in the forest, awaiting the rain. For each season has its sonata. Silence and sound in balance belong to the decline of autumn. In winter the notes are fewer. Silence comes into its kingdom crown of the father, who departs. The world of white prepares to conquer the earth with silence. .             .          .            .           . In British poetry, articulate hues speak as they are visible to the mind audible colors played on a piano primary sounds in an empty forest. And then above a lake, the moon in motion suspended like a dancer as the music temporarily ceases depriving her body of its rhythm. .             .          .            .           . Ideal forms crowd the auditorium. The light of day starts to fade and a mist settles in the valleys. The great house is lit from within. .             .          .            .           . As they were, in other windows you want to see their ghosts the slaves, like black posts staggered through the fields. You want to make a picture that shows the strange overlords at intervals watch the misery of torsos laboring to plant and harvest the seas of sugar. .             .          .            .           . The green beds of sugar cane extend from here to the hills. Bright heads grazed by the light of paradise become its negative. .             .          .            .           . In time, would the land irritate us as it must have irritated the masters the tropical caress of the air unavoidable getting up each day to see once more the rolling green hills and cattle ponds tranquil in the valleys, the horses collected at the water trough, content to stand or to walk over the grass. A comely scene worthy of an oil painting (fruit trees dappled with sunlight). They have escaped from seasons into the monotony of a terrible beauty. (Who is speaking?) .             .          .            .           . Away from the coast the car passes through a shadowy green world of tropical syntax ragged slopes and curves. .             .          .            .           . What then was promised by the evening lights that spangled about the hills? .             .          .            .           . Endless tall grasses, a landscape composed of variations on a color. The after-image of elliptical forms transparent as the cry of a seagull. .             .          .            .           . A tablet of scripted exclamations: there, a poinciana with pink blossoms overhangs the road, there a scrawl of fighting tendrils, an indigo grammar of petals offering illumination to fan-shaped pristine hieroglyphs waving to greener punctuations of banana trees and mango, a tangle of writing over writing closed to further interventions. Visible palimpsest of a book without letters the tangle of leaves has no secret key and cannot be deciphered, wordless monads travelling contours of silence. .             .          .            .           . Mimesis touches the world with an imperceptible tenderness, only hardly like wind an Aeolian harp. .             .          .            .           . There is a point when the sky pivots to face the dawn, to face the dark side of personality, that of a sensible man recanting the mysteries he embraced as a youth, when the angels spoke to him and he ran towards them with arms wide open across a field, beneath the painted stars. .             .          .            .           . Say that the world is a drinking glass containing things of the life and language and say that a poet wakes up one morning thinking of capturing for the future those petals inside that glass, broken vowels. A vase of orchids stands on a kitchen table. Not that it is abstract, or a luminous symbol, nonetheless it is an algebra of forces, like the equations of space-time, which rule outside the mental universe. As if an image should leave its mirror behind (the thing of which it is but a ghost) like bodiless speech, and yet sensuous, in the way a dream can leave its mark on the dreamer— Esse est percipi, so speaketh the Law. Wind begins to touch an Aeolian harp. The great house is a place of articulation word calls to other words, in transit. Compelled by the beauty of flowers the mind creates a space for other things. .             .          .            .           . (By British I mean Romantic idealist.) Warm night descends like a cloak. The whistle of tree frogs supplies a melody, and crickets invisible to the moon begin their Parliament. The birds sleep with their young. The air is otherwise still.

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.  Nay, it is deeper than my sister’s depth and stronger than my brother’s strength, and stranger than the strangeness of my madness. Aeons upon aeons have passed since the first grey dawn made us visible to one another; and though we have seen the birth and the fullness and the death of many worlds, we are still eager and young. We are young and eager and yet we are mateless and unvisited, and though we lie in unbroken half embrace, we are uncomforted.  And what comfort is there for controlled desire and unspent passion? Whence shall come the flaming god to warm my sister’s bed?  And what she-torrent shall quench my brother’s fire?  And who is the woman that shall command my heart? In the stillness of the night my sister murmurs in her sleep the fire-god’s unknown name, and my brother calls afar upon the cool and distant goddess.  But upon whom I call in my sleep I know not. *        *         * Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.