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how this time is a fact of shared space looking to pass through, undifferentiated memory always has a back door no one word settles me or rather than resist rather than resolution such that lists fall from one

Misus and Mopsa hardly could agree, Striving about superiority. The text which says that man and wife are one, Was the chief argument they stood upon. She held they both one woman should become, He held both should be man, and both but one. So they contended daily, but the strife Could not be ended, till both were one wife.

The lift, the very lift and pull of it! They’d wasted the summer morning, father and son in the devil’s breath of July—gnats wheeling madly above the drive—pasting Sunday comics across the struts, like the canvas skin of a Sopwith Camel. Into the close-gnawn yard with its humpback boulder, they dragged it triumphantly, unreeling the twine until the contraption yanked itself from bald earth, high above the matchbox houses on the verge of woods and the sweet-smelling bog, to a height where a boy might peer over the horizon to Boston—and beyond, the ocean. The son was my father. I tottered at his legs, having borrowed his name and my grandfather’s. They payed out the ramshackle affair until it became a postage stamp. The line burned a bloody groove into my palms, the last time they stood at ease with each other.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

A Lady asks me I speak in season She seeks reason for an affect, wild often That is so proud he hath Love for a name Who denys it can hear the truth now Wherefore I speak to the present knowers Having no hope that low-hearted Can bring sight to such reason Be there not natural demonstration I have no will to try proof-bringing Or say where it hath birth What is its virtu and power Its being and every moving Or delight whereby ‘tis called “to love” Or if man can show it to sight. Where memory liveth, it takes its state Formed like a diafan from light on shade Which shadow cometh of Mars and remaineth Created, having a name sensate, Custom of the soul, will from the heart; Cometh from a seen form which being understood Taketh locus and remaining in the intellect possible Wherein hath he neither weight nor still-standing, Descendeth not by quality but shineth out Himself his own effect unendingly Not in delight but in the being aware Nor can he leave his true likeness otherwhere. He is not vertu but cometh of that perfection Which is so postulate not by the reason But ‘tis felt, I say. Beyond salvation, holdeth his judging force Deeming intention to be reason’s peer and mate, Poor in discernment, being thus weakness’ friend Often his power cometh on death in the end, Be it withstayed and so swinging counterweight. Not that it were natural opposite, but only Wry’d a bit from the perfect, Let no man say love cometh from chance Or hath not established lordship Holding his power even though Memory hath him no more. Cometh he to be when the will From overplus Twisteth out of natural measure, Never adorned with rest Moveth he changing colour Either to laugh or weep Contorting the face with fear resteth but a little Yet shall ye see of him That he is most often With folk who deserve him And his strange quality sets sighs to move Willing man look into that forméd trace in his mind And with such uneasiness as rouseth the flame. Unskilled can not form his image, He himself moveth not, drawing all to his stillness, Neither turneth about to seek his delight Nor yet to see out proving Be it so great or so small. He draweth likeness and hue from like nature So making pleasure more certain in seeming Nor can stand hid in such nearness, Beautys be darts tho’ not savage Skilled from such fear a man follows Deserving spirit, that pierceth. Nor is he known from his face But taken in the white light that is allness Toucheth his aim Who heareth, seeth not form But is led by its emanation Being divided, set out from colour, Disjunct in mid darkness Grazeth the light, one moving by other, Being divided, divided from all falsity Worthy of trust From him alone mercy proceedeth. Go, song, surely thou mayest Whither it please thee For so art thou ornate that thy reasons Shall be praised from thy understanders, With others hast thou no will to make company. “Called thrones, balascio or topaze” Eriugina was not understood in his time “which explains, perhaps, the delay in condemning him” And they went looking for Manicheans And found, so far as I can make out, no Manicheans So they dug for, and damned Scotus Eriugina “Authority comes from right reason, never the other way on” Hence the delay in condemning him Aquinas head down in a vacuum, Aristotle which way in a vacuum? Sacrum, sacrum, inluminatio coitu. Lo Sordels si fo di Mantovana of a castle named Goito. “Five castles! “Five castles!” (king giv’ him five castles) “And what the hell do I know about dye-works?!” His Holiness has written a letter: “CHARLES the Mangy of Anjou…. ..way you treat your men is a scandal….” Dilectis miles familiaris…castra Montis Odorisii Montis Sancti Silvestri pallete et pile… In partibus Thetis….vineland land tilled the land incult pratis nemoribus pascuis with legal jurisdiction his heirs of both sexes, …sold the damn lot six weeks later, Sordellus de Godio. Quan ben m’albir e mon ric pensamen.

Only sometimes does homegrown bedrock glow moneygreen. Sometimes rock whines mommy. Sometimes rock coos baby. Sometimes rock calls late with the mortgage. Sometimes rock knits shoulder blades right where you can’t pluck. Early mornings something doesn’t sit right over the sink. Sits crooked. Slumps askew. Body doesn’t lay the way you left it. Squinting gets you nowhere. You squat to the floor and feel around. Stop. Smell for it. Shrug. Still some dangling something modifies you. Smackdab midchest you feel lumpy empty. Sniff. Sniff. Shrug. Like those days we grab our own pickaxes and head down to the mine. We hum worksongs. We sing hymns. We chip worry stone. We gather moss. We lie flat. We scratch at the mineshaft. Not toward exit but deeper to the core.

On thin golden poles gliding up, sliding down, a kingdom of horses goes spinning around. Jumper, Brown Beauty, Dark Thunder, Sir Snow, a medley of ponies parade in a row. Settled in saddles, their riders hold on to reins of soft leather while circling along on chestnut or charcoal, on sleek Arctic white, on silver they gallop in place day and night. Such spinning is magic, (to dream as you sail) with lavender saddle and ebony tail, whirling to music in moonlight, spellbound, galloping, galloping, merrily go round.

All day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy, and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top. Out of the blacksmith's cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe, and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing— The sounds that for these fifty years have been. The whisper of the aspens is not drowned, And over lightless pane and footless road, Empty as sky, with every other sound Not ceasing, calls their ghosts from their abode, A silent smithy, a silent inn, nor fails In the bare moonlight or the thick-furred gloom, In tempest or the night of nightingales, To turn the cross-roads to a ghostly room. And it would be the same were no house near. Over all sorts of weather, men, and times, Aspens must shake their leaves and men may hear But need not listen, more than to my rhymes. Whatever wind blows, while they and I have leaves We cannot other than an aspen be That ceaselessly, unreasonably grieves, Or so men think who like a different tree.

How can it not be about engine, secret blaze behind the wheels? How not about this no-way-to-resist seeing but one side or another since the rails quite insist & iron's so right, always running off its own might. How never about freightage or the outdoor face in the indoor light? A yesteryear's pall over the day at hand? Not about the passings-by of nailed-shut houses & grouse setting sail from a rusty swing? How not me out of uniform, out of a sleeper's berth, bare & barely rising atop smoke & so little air left in the soft underbelly that I may meet—nay, embrace— the hello-goodbye cloud.

When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead And that thou think'st thee free From all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, And thee, feign'd vestal, in worse arms shall see; Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, And he, whose thou art then, being tir'd before, Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think Thou call'st for more, And in false sleep will from thee shrink; And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie A verier ghost than I. What I will say, I will not tell thee now, Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent, I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent, Than by my threat'nings rest still innocent.