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for Gloria Imagining, on a long walk between two Greek towns, those Turkish prisoners the guidebook says were sabred where they crowded together on the stone dock; and then imagining—still walking, anxious to see some worker in the fields or another old couple like the last one (he riding the donkey, she leading it in black)— the Greeks whom the Germans shot; and as the road after rising leads down again, at last to the town by the bay, imagining all the feuds given license by the civil war, the woman whose husband, forgive him his faults now, steps dead through the doorway one night: imagining, imagining—is there a way out of this brooding ahead to the hollow thud of the first dirt thrown down on his coffin? What is the word any tongue can make good for the boy— let someone else name his country— who speaks to his sleeping wife when he leaves at night, his brother tagging after him, one puny gun between them? If his cold spirit can still speak her name tomorrow, won’t she feel even more alone? Aeneas carried a high purpose on the point of his sword: a city needed founding, if not here then in another place. This road, though, dips past two ordinary houses and then the disco casting a stale abandoned shade, sharp-edged, to one side, and I descend— through hot odd-angled streets lined with those plane trees whose name’s so bland and awkward translated out of sunny Greek or Spanish— to the huge white plane-tree-shaded square. At the cafe in the open air I order lemonade from the waitress who has just served the little table crowded round by seven or eight, a changing group—the eager interpreter talking and listening at the same time, three young women dressed up, and even in this small town the four military men from the foreign ship offshore, out of uniform but with an apparent eye for swag some future day, talking of small deals, clever braveries, travels. They exact smiles and attentions and never have they seen such a pretty town as this, never. The three women listen hard to the roared harsh sounds of the odd tongue, then impatiently to the interpreter while the military men wait. What could such noise be about? Do these men love the ways ours do, do they like their women to speak to them in bed, to say what they want, to say it? The Turkish prisoners had been led outside with the lie that they’d be freed. Inside the smoky small bar so they can watch without being watched, young men are bitter, imagining the weight of medals, coming one by one to the dusty window-glass then returning toward the far unlit interior. The lemonade arrives at last in the pretty hands of the waitress, she puts it on my white table under the plane trees and hurries away to be near the laughing group, foreign men who one day may bring something new to the town, or something old. for Gloria

You’ve got to understand that sighting the pair of eagles over the block, right over our house, not more than twenty feet above the roof, so massive their wings pull at the corrugated tin sheeting even with gentlest tilt, counteracts bitterness against all the damage I see and hear around me on an exclusively crisp blue morning, when clarity is pain and even one small missing wattle tree, entirely vanquished since I was last here at home—I still find this hard to say—is agony; a region is not a pinpoint and a different compass works in my head, having magnetics for all directions and all pointing to one spot I know and observe as closely as possible; and even one small vanished or vanquished wattle tree is agony close to death for me, where I find it hard to breathe to feed myself to get past the loss; but the pair of eagles still appearing and keeping their sharp and scrupulous eyes honed, overrides this ordeal, though I wish their victims life too and their damage is traumatic as anything else; that’s as much sense or nonsense as I can make in such blue light.

The American eagle is not aware he is the American eagle. He is never tempted to look modest. When orators advertise the American eagle’s virtues, the American eagle is not listening. This is his virtue. He is somewhere else, he is mountains away but even if he were near he would never make an audience. The American eagle never says he will serve if drafted, will dutifully serve etc. He is not at our service. If we have honored him we have honored one who unequivocally honors himself by overlooking us. He does not know the meaning of magnificent. Perhaps we do not altogether either who cannot touch him.

To pray you open your whole self To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon To one whole voice that is you. And know there is more That you can’t see, can’t hear; Can’t know except in moments Steadily growing, and in languages That aren’t always sound but other Circles of motion. Like eagle that Sunday morning Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky In wind, swept our hearts clean With sacred wings. We see you, see ourselves and know That we must take the utmost care And kindness in all things. Breathe in, knowing we are made of All this, and breathe, knowing We are truly blessed because we Were born, and die soon within a True circle of motion, Like eagle rounding out the morning Inside us. We pray that it will be done In beauty. In beauty.

(John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois and my next-door neighbor, 1893-1897. Born December 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902.) Sleep softly . . . eagle forgotten . . . under the stone. Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. “We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced. They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day, Now you were ended. They praised you . . . and laid you away. The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth, The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth, The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor, That should have remembered forever . . . remember no more. Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call, The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall? They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones, A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons, The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man. Sleep softly . . . eagle forgotten . . . under the stone, Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own. Sleep on, O brave-hearted, O wise man that kindled the flame— To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name, To live in mankind, far, far more . . . than to live in a name.

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Someone’s coming from the other world. Hiss of night rain. Someone’s going there now. The two are sure to meet. Translated from the Korean

Earbud—a tiny marble sheathed in foam to wear like an interior earring so you can enjoy private noises wherever you go, protected from any sudden silence. Only check your batteries, then copy a thousand secret songs and stories on the tiny pod you carry in your pocket. You are safe now from other noises made by other people, other machines, by chance, noises you have not chosen as your own. To get your attention, I touch your arm to show you the tornado or the polar bear. Sometimes I catch you humming or talking to the air as if to a shrunken lover waiting in your ear.

I lov’d thee from the earliest dawn, When first I saw thy beauty’s ray, And will, until life’s eve comes on, And beauty’s blossom fades away; And when all things go well with thee, With smiles and tears remember me. I’ll love thee when thy morn is past, And wheedling gallantry is o’er, When youth is lost in age’s blast, And beauty can ascend no more, And when life’s journey ends with thee, O, then look back and think of me. I’ll love thee with a smile or frown, ’Mid sorrow’s gloom or pleasure’s light, And when the chain of life runs down, Pursue thy last eternal flight, When thou hast spread thy wing to flee, Still, still, a moment wait for me. I’ll love thee for those sparkling eyes, To which my fondness was betray’d, Bearing the tincture of the skies, To glow when other beauties fade, And when they sink too low to see, Reflect an azure beam on me.

I couldn't have waited. By the time you return it would have rotted on the vine. So I cut the first tomato into eighths, salted the pieces in the dusk and found the flesh not mealy (like last year's) or bitter, even when I swallowed the green crown of the stem that made my throat feel dusty and warm. Pah. I could have gagged on the sweetness. The miser accused by her red sums. Better had I eaten the dirt itself on this the first night in my life when I have not been too busy for my loneliness— at last, it comes.