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Here take my picture; though I bid farewell Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. 'Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more When we are shadows both, than 'twas before. When weather-beaten I come back, my hand Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun beams tann'd, My face and breast of haircloth, and my head With care's rash sudden storms being o'erspread, My body'a sack of bones, broken within, And powder's blue stains scatter'd on my skin; If rival fools tax thee to'have lov'd a man So foul and coarse as, oh, I may seem then, This shall say what I was, and thou shalt say, "Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay? Or do they reach his judging mind, that he Should now love less, what he did love to see? That which in him was fair and delicate, Was but the milk which in love's childish state Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough To feed on that, which to disus'd tastes seems tough."

Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love, And in that sophistry, oh, thou dost prove Too subtle: Fool, thou didst not understand The mystic language of the eye nor hand: Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air Of sighs, and say, this lies, this sounds despair: Nor by the’eye’s water call a malady Desperately hot, or changing feverously. I had not taught thee then, the alphabet Of flowers, how they devicefully being set And bound up, might with speechless secrecy Deliver errands mutely, and mutually. Remember since all thy words used to be To every suitor, “I, ’if my friends agree”; Since, household charms, thy husband’s name to teach, Were all the love-tricks, that thy wit could reach; And since, an hour’s discourse could scarce have made One answer in thee, and that ill arrayed In broken proverbs, and torn sentences. Thou art not by so many duties his, That from the’world’s common having severed thee, Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see, As mine: who have with amorous delicacies Refined thee’into a blissful paradise. Thy graces and good words my creatures be; I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee, Which oh, shall strangers taste? Must I alas Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass? Chafe wax for others’ seals? break a colt’s force And leave him then, being made a ready horse?

Those twenty-six letters filling the blackboard Compose the dark, compose The illiterate summer sky & its stars as they appear One by one, above the schoolyard. If the soul had a written history, nothing would have happened: A bird would still be riding the back of a horse, And the horse would go on grazing in a field, & the gleaners, At one with the land, the wind, the sun examining Their faces, would go on working, Each moment forgotten in the swipe of a scythe. But the walls of the labyrinth have already acquired Their rose tint from the blood of slaves Crushed into the stone used to build them, & the windows Of stained glass are held in place by the shriek And sighing body of a falling chimneysweep through The baked & blackened air. This ash was once a village, That snowflake, time itself. But until the day it is permitted to curl up in a doorway, And try to sleep, the snow falling just beyond it, There’s nothing for it to do: The soul rests its head in its hands & stares out From its desk at the trash-littered schoolyard, It stays where it was left. When the window fills with pain, the soul bears witness, But it doesn’t write. Nor does it write home Having no need to, having no home. In this way, & in no other Was the soul gradually replaced by the tens of thousands Of things meant to represent it— All of which proclaimed, or else lamented, its absence. Until, in the drone of auditoriums & lecture halls, it became No more than the scraping of a branch Against the side of a house, no more than the wincing Of a patient on a couch, or the pinched, nasal tenor Of the strung-out addict’s voice, While this sound of scratching, this tapping all night, Enlarging the quiet instead of making a music within it, Is just a way of joining one thing to another, Myself to whoever it is—sitting there in the schoolroom, Sitting there while also being led through the schoolyard Where prisoners are exercising in the cold light— A way of joining or trying to join one thing to another, So that the stillness of the clouds & the sky Opening beneath the blindfold of the prisoner, & the cop Who leads him toward it, toward the blank Sail of the sky at the end of the world, are bewildered So that everything, in this moment, bewilders Them: the odd gentleness each feels in the hand Of the other, & how they don’t stop walking, not now Not for anything.

By the time we got out on the water the sun was so low, it wasn’t like water but a field of gray snow that we plowed in one endless white furrow of water as I skirted the rocks and wrecked trawlers and abandoned old jetties just under the water, while you moaned in the bow, slick with fever, whispering back to whatever the water chattered and hissed through the hull— until at last there were lights on the water and I let the old Mercury rattle and sputter its steaming gray rainbows out onto the water as we drifted, at idle, for the last time in your life, through that beloved, indifferent harbor.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; "The next with dirges due in sad array Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God.

— Way on back through the underwood by Bowen’s Canal Well we’d heard it to be veiny with cottonmouths I’m not gonna lie. • For true the sheer (snake-electric) back-beyond of the place put a pull on us like a magnet. • That that rag-rope (flagged and) barred the path just egged us on. • (To go and skulk- and sidle-learn to palp and tap the edge to crack us in.) • — What’d we feel there once we’d crossed? • Veritable thought-thick trunks of swampfoot oaks. • Something like ‘a shift in the structure of experience.’ • Here was Johnny Pep (shrapped home from war) branch-dragging agglomerating discards and disjecta. • His craving wove a plexus (more a house) from limbs and leaves. • He knit us in: he left us be.   He let us watch he watched us try (to climb to ape his crisscross weave) to pitch to plait the roof. • Something like ‘Yall strayboys welcome to be welcome if you work.’ • Didn’t we ‘work’ — particular night-hoots (and near-chromatic whistle-riffs) in echo; likenesses he whittled live from hickory showed us how. • He’d let us watch him strip and shave the shagbark bark to taste (to read) to mull the grain. • Something like ‘root-room’ I reckon.   Something like • ‘When Johnny Pep hitched home from war we took to carving (curing) scraplings into shapes.’

I brought what I knew about the world to my daily life and it failed me. I brought senseless accidents and a depravity sprung inside the jaw. Also I brought what I had learned of love, an air of swift entrance and exit, a belief in trouble and desire. It will amount to something I was told, and I was told to hold fast to decency, to be spotlit and confident. I was told next year’s words await another voice. But you are a hard mouth to speak to and if I write the list it will be free of constancy. It will include fierce birds, false springs, a few oil lamps that need quickly to be lit. Also dusk and weeds and a sleep that permits utter oblivion from our stranded century. This is not a natural world, and if there are recoveries from confusion, they pass like rains. I don’t look to the robins for solace; neither do I trust that to make an end is to make a beginning. If we are not capable of company, we can at least both touch the quartet inside evening, the snow inside the willow, the bewildering kinship of ice and sky. But as I walked I saw crows ripping at shapes on the street, a square of sunlight flare on the roof. Take my hand, if only here and not in the time that remains for us to spend together. We will stand and watch the most delicate weathers move, second by second, through the grim neighborhood. I will lean into you, who have loved me in your way, knowing where you are and what you care for.

She wants to grow from the rich-rotten trunk of the stamp left to sprout in the chain-linked alley yard. She wants to be born there. Or out of dry wind rushing debris around and cleaning the world like a slate that hasn’t yet written how her birth will be if she be born slick-wet and shimmering in rings like gas spill, born from long trickles run off curb-piled snow that flows in curtains any northern winter when it is possible to burn in water, when flakes against skin so cold brand their pattern on the new-thought, engraved self.

Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor: The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper- seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted, unlucky heir Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease, His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream Of squirrel's game, in tree room, other than this. On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare's head, Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding all cities. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map Awarding the world its world. And yet, for these Children, these windows, not this map, their world, Where all their future's painted with a fog, A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words. Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example. With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal — For lives that slyly turn in their cramped holes From fog to endless night? On their slag heap, these children Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones. All of their time and space are foggy slum. So blot their maps with slums as big as doom. Unless, governor, inspector, visitor, This map becomes their window and these windows That shut upon their lives like catacombs, Break O break open till they break the town And show the children to green fields, and make their world Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues Run naked into books the white and green leaves open History theirs whose language is the sun.

for César Chávez Field The wind sprays pale dirt into my mouth The small, almost invisible scars On my hands. The pores in my throat and elbows Have taken in a seed of dirt of their own. After a day in the grape fields near Rolinda A fine silt, washed by sweat, Has settled into the lines On my wrists and palms. Already I am becoming the valley, A soil that sprouts nothing. For any of us. Wind A dry wind over the valley Peeled mountains, grain by grain, To small slopes, loose dirt Where red ants tunnel. The wind strokes The skulls and spines of cattle To white dust, to nothing, Covers the spiked tracks of beetles, Of tumbleweed, of sparrows That pecked the ground for insects. Evenings, when I am in the yard weeding, The wind picks up the breath of my armpits Like dust, swirls it Miles away And drops it On the ear of a rabid dog, And I take on another life. Wind When you got up this morning the sun Blazed an hour in the sky, A lizard hid Under the curled leaves of manzanita And winked its dark lids. Later, the sky grayed, And the cold wind you breathed Was moving under your skin and already far From the small hives of your lungs. Stars At dusk the first stars appear. Not one eager finger points toward them. A little later the stars spread with the night And an orange moon rises To lead them, like a shepherd, toward dawn. Sun In June the sun is a bonnet of light Coming up, Little by little, From behind a skyline of pine. The pastures sway with fiddle-neck, Tassels of foxtail. At Piedra A couple fish on the river’s edge, Their shadows deep against the water. Above, in the stubbled slopes, Cows climb down As the heat rises In a mist of blond locusts, Returning to the valley. Rain When autumn rains flatten sycamore leaves, The tiny volcanos of dirt Ants raised around their holes, I should be out of work. My silverware and stack of plates will go unused Like the old, my two good slacks Will smother under a growth of lint And smell of the old dust That rises When the closet door opens or closes. The skin of my belly will tighten like a belt And there will be no reason for pockets. Harvest East of the sun’s slant, in the vineyard that never failed, A wind crossed my face, moving the dust And a portion of my voice a step closer to a new year. The sky went black in the ninth hour of rolling trays, And in the distance ropes of rain dropped to pull me From the thick harvest that was not mine. Fog If you go to your window You will notice a fog drifting in. The sun is no stronger than a flashlight. Not all the sweaters Hung in closets all summer Could soak up this mist. The fog: A mouth nibbling everything to its origin, Pomegranate trees, stolen bicycles, The string of lights at a used-car lot, A Pontiac with scorched valves. In Fresno the fog is passing The young thief prying a window screen, Graying my hair that falls And goes unfound, my fingerprints Slowly growing a fur of dust— One hundred years from now There should be no reason to believe I lived. Daybreak In this moment when the light starts up In the east and rubs The horizon until it catches fire, We enter the fields to hoe, Row after row, among the small flags of onion, Waving off the dragonflies That ladder the air. And tears the onions raise Do not begin in your eyes but in ours, In the salt blown From one blister into another; They begin in knowing You will never waken to bear The hour timed to a heart beat, The wind pressing us closer to the ground. When the season ends, And the onions are unplugged from their sleep, We won’t forget what you failed to see, And nothing will heal Under the rain’s broken fingers.