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To turn a stone with its white squirming underneath, to pry the disc from the sun’s eclipse—white heat coiling in the blinded eye: to these malign necessities we come from the dim time of dinosaurs who crawled like breathing lava from the earth’s cracked crust, and swung their tiny heads above the lumbering tons of flesh, brains no bigger than a fist clenched to resist the white flash in the sky the day the sun-flares pared them down to relics for museums, turned glaciers back, seared Sinai’s meadows black—the ferns withered, the swamps were melted down to molten mud, the cells uncoupled, recombined, and madly multiplied, huge trees toppled to the ground, the slow life there abandoned hope, a caterpillar stiffened in the grass. Two apes, caught in the act of coupling, made a mutant child who woke to sunlight wondering, his mother torn by the huge new head that forced the narrow birth canal. As if compelled to repetition and to unearth again white fire at the heart of matter—fire we sought and fire we spoke, our thoughts, however elegant, were fire from first to last—like sentries set to watch at Argos for the signal fire passed peak to peak from Troy to Nagasaki, triumphant echo of the burning city walls and prologue to the murders yet to come—we scan the sky for that bright flash, our eyes stared white from watching for the signal fire that ends the epic—a cursed line with its caesura, a pause to signal peace, or a rehearsal for the silence.

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into palms, Like windy citherns hankering for hymns. We agree in principle. That's clear. But take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle project a masque Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness, Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last, Is equally converted into palms, Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm, Madame, we are where we began. Allow, Therefore, that in the planetary scene Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed, Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade, Proud of such novelties of the sublime, Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk, May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres. This will make widows wince. But fictive things Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

P ART O NE The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door. He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin. They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh. And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard. He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred. He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord’s daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair. And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked. His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay, But he loved the landlord’s daughter, The landlord’s red-lipped daughter. Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say— “One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night, But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, Then look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight, I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.” He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand, But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast; And he kissed its waves in the moonlight, (O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!) Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west. P ART T WO He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon; And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon, When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor, A red-coat troop came marching— Marching—marching— King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door. They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead. But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed. Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side! There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window; For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride. They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest. They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast! “Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say— Look for me by moonlight; Watch for me by moonlight; I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way! She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good! She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, Cold, on the stroke of midnight, The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers! The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest. Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast. She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again; For the road lay bare in the moonlight; Blank and bare in the moonlight; And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s refrain. Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear; Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear? Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill, The highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still. Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence!Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night! Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light. Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath, Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death. He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood! Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear How Bess, the landlord’s daughter, The landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there. Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky, With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high. Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat; When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat. .       .       . And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding— Riding—riding— A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard. He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred. He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord’s daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all are sleeping on the hill. One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in a jail, One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife — All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one? — All, all are sleeping on the hill. One died in shameful child-birth, One of a thwarted love, One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire, One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag — All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked With venerable men of the revolution? — All, all are sleeping on the hill. They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed, And their children fatherless, crying — All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where is Old Fiddler Jones Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast, Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said One time at Springfield.

Or will we be lost forever? In the silence of the last breath Not taken The blue sweep of your arm like a dancer Clowning, in wrinkled pajamas, Across the sky the abrupt Brief zigzag of a jay... All night the whiteness And all day. Once we have been lifted up Into empty morning like ice In the darkness of these white fields Neither the ghost tracks of skis Nor steel skates will wake us Where are we looking for each other, separated On the opposite hillside I see you Miles away from me, a dot Of faint color reddening, small bruised warmth Opening its cranberry mouth and saying, What are you saying? * Under a cold blanket An immense loneliness stretches In every direction with no fences. A few sticks tweak the crusted snow: Thin remnants of an army Of lost soldiers. I see footsteps ahead of me but whose And where will they lead me, parallel Or converging? Is it not possible there will be one jet trail That will not vanish, Two phantom ribbons unfolding That will not feather themselves away? * Wrapped in our white parkas In what shifting laminations, snowflakes That mean nothing, transparent eyes spitting, What glacier will we choose to lie on, In what igloo rest Barely breathing, in an air pocket Just below the surface Rustling beneath blizzards Where is your foot, most beautiful With blue toenails I will be looking for it always Wherever it is, next to me In the darkness Of rumpled white sheets, Pale siftings, clouds Sudden scarves of ourselves gusting Loose, sandpapery as snow lifting In what chill citadel of ice crystals Will I find you?

My brother is still alive and living In Fresno. All day he stares at the dead bodies Of automobiles In his garage. It isn’t a prison He’d wish himself free of. I visit him, Dragging my boxes Of books and awards Behind me. We are walking out of the city Into the white flame of the desert. Not unlike the Desert Fathers walking out into Sinai. My brother carries his briefcase Loaded in icons and dollar bills. He is wearing Larry Levis’s shining Suit and black leather boots. I am wearing a pale gown Of sun-bleached flowers. We are talking About the Resurrection. We are walking dead Into it Leaving the world and its sweet chorus Of horrors behind. There is no city But the city within. No door, but the door To simple wisdom. We walk, dumb As newborns Into the tremendous and endless Blessing.

She cannot imagine it otherwise. She wakes in the morning and twists her ring, loves how every night in their bed he lies breathing warm in the dark and never shies away. He lets her talk, he lets her sing. She cannot imagine it otherwise. One night she’s surprised how gently he tries to move her arm when he thinks she’s sleeping. In the night, in their bed, she sees he lies watching the ceiling long before sunrise. Too much coffee, too many late nights working. She cannot imagine it otherwise. He quiets. The more she worries and pries the less he tells her about anything. She’s sure every night in their bed he lies wanting a room beyond reach of her eyes. He sighs—she cries so much,Over nothing. She cannot imagine it otherwise: Every night in their bed, he lies.

First there was some other order of things never spoken but in dreams of darkest creation. Then there was black earth, lake, the face of light on water. Then the thick forest all around that light, and then the human clay whose blood we still carry rose up in us who remember caves with red bison painted in their own blood, after their kind. A wildness swam inside our mothers, desire through closed eyes, a new child wearing the red, wet mask of birth, delivered into this land already wounded, stolen and burned beyond reckoning. Red is this yielding land turned inside out by a country of hunters with iron, flint and fire. Red is the fear that turns a knife back against men, holds it at their throats, and they cannot see the claw on the handle, the animal hand that haunts them from some place inside their blood. So that is hunting, birth, and one kind of death. Then there was medicine, the healing of wounds. Red was the infinite fruit of stolen bodies. The doctors wanted to know what invented disease how wounds healed from inside themselves how life stands up in skin, if not by magic. They divined the red shadows of leeches that swam in white bowls of water: they believed stars in the cup of sky. They cut the wall of skin to let what was bad escape but they were reading the story of fire gone out and that was a science. As for the animal hand on death’s knife, knives have as many sides as the red father of war who signs his name in the blood of other men. And red was the soldier who crawled through a ditch of human blood in order to live. It was the canal of his deliverance. It is his son who lives near me. Red is the thunder in our ears when we meet. Love, like creation, is some other order of things. Red is the share of fire I have stolen from root, hoof, fallen fruit. And this was hunger. Red is the human house I come back to at night swimming inside the cave of skin that remembers bison. In that round nation of blood we are all burning, red, inseparable fires the living have crawled and climbed through in order to live so nothing will be left for death at the end. This life in the fire, I love it. I want it, this life.

It's 70 degrees outside but in the drugstore Christmas music plays over the speakers as I stand in line balancing my checkbook in my head, stretching things thin until my next paycheck when the rent is due. The security guard cracks a joke, but I wasn't paying attention, so I just smile & step forward in line. Images move across the screen. When I think about money it seems impossible. All over the country people are moving into the streets & we're here in Atlanta starting a new life. Darkness surrounds the latest revision of our shared history. Everything clouded. Yesterday 1 couldn't tear myself from the news & already today the events have been distorted, the numbers downplayed. It's late fall & in the early morning crispness, the leaves fall from the trees & cover the sidewalks. This new feeling we lack a name for, struggle manifested in the streets & in parks & on bridges across the nation. The headlines read "Protesters clash with police," but as we watched the live stream, we saw aggression only by officers dressed in riot gear. We saw people tossed on the ground, hit with batons, a woman punched in the face, an eighty-four year old woman's face drenched in pepper spray. The images endless in this land of the free. I'm losing focus, distracted by the newsfeed on the computer screen, hitting refresh. The cat paws at my leg, demands its own attention. This shift entirely unexpected but necessary. Leaves blot the window. Every so often I leave & start from scratch, imagine damaged relationships & sick cities where there was no damage & no sickness greater than anywhere else. In Atlanta, everyone drives. The bartender called us "hardcore" when we said we'd walked there. She said, "No one in Atlanta walks anywhere." Walking home from work in post-daylight savings time darkness I pass no one on the sidewalks. I pass the traffic backed up by the stoplight. The weekend passes too quickly— I wish it would last longer, which is what this all is really about: time & my lack of control over it, my inability to do what I want with it. And there's a greater futility at work here too—a greater frustration in my inability to control my environment or to stop my country from killing its citizens. The police beat people standing still, linking arms, holding cardboard signs. Each day I think more & more about the past, about where things began to go wrong, where I, too, began to go wrong. Before I moved, before I got sick, before I unfriended you on Facebook, before I decided I no longer loved you, before New York, before college—thinking back to childhood when we could run fearless through the neighborhood at night, when we didn't think about the future, when we loved our country because we didn't know better.

From child to youth; from youth to arduous man; From lethargy to fever of the heart; From faithful life to dream-dower'd days apart; From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;— Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran Till now. Alas, the soul!—how soon must she Accept her primal immortality,— The flesh resume its dust whence it began? O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life! O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late, Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath: That when the peace is garner'd in from strife, The work retriev'd, the will regenerate, This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death!