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Constancy is an evolution of one’s living quarters into a thought: a continuation of a parallelogram or a rectangle by means—as Clausewitz would have put it— of the voice and, ultimately, the gray matter. Ah, shrunken to the size of a brain-cell parlor with a lampshade, an armoire in the “Slavic Glory” fashion, four studded chairs, a sofa, a bed, a bedside table with little medicine bottles left there standing like a kremlin or, better yet, manhattan. To die, to abandon a family, to go away for good, to change hemispheres, to let new ovals be painted into the square—the more volubly will the gray cell insist on its actual measurements, demanding daily sacrifice from the new locale, from the furniture, from the silhouette in a yellow dress; in the end—from your very self. A spider revels in shading especially the fifth corner. Evolution is not a species’ adjustment to a new environment but one’s memories’ triumph over reality, the ichthyosaurus pining for the amoeba, the slack vertebrae of a train thundering in the darkness, past the mussel shells, tightly shut for the night, with their spineless, soggy, pearl-shrouding contents.

I cannot change, as others do, Though you unjustly scorn; Since that poor swain, that sighs for you For you alone was born. No, Phyllis, no, your heart to move A surer way I’ll try: And to revenge my slighted love, Will still love on, will still love on, and die. When, kill’d with grief, Amyntas lies; And you to mind shall call The sighs that now unpitied rise; The tears that vainly fall: That welcome hour that ends this smart, Will then begin your pain; For such a faithful, tender heart Can never break, can never break in vain.

Since all that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day— Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath, Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death! Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see, She is not thou, and only thou are she, Still, still as though some dear embodied Good, Some living Love before my eyes there stood With answering look a ready ear to lend, I mourn to thee and say—'Ah! loveliest friend! That this the meed of all my toils might be, To have a home, an English home, and thee!' Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one. The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon, Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark, Without thee were but a becalméd bark, Whose Helmsman on an ocean waste and wide Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside. And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!

constant change figures the time we sense passing on its effect surpassing things we've known before since memory of many things is called experience but what of what we call nature's picture surpassing things we call since memory we call nature's picture surpassing things we've known before constant change figures experience passing on its effect but what of what constant change figures since memory of many things is called the time we sense called nature's picture but what of what in the time we sense surpassing things we've known before passing on its effect is experience

Above a coast that lies between two coasts Flight 902 turns west towards San Diego. Milwaukee falls away. The constant passenger, Removed from character and context, resumes His California story, gradually ascending, Reading Farewell, My Lovely for the umpteenth time, Like a book above the world, or below the noise. I recall some houses halfway in the desert, And how dry the trees all seemed, and temporary Even the tallest buildings looked, with bungalows Decaying in the Santa Ana wind. And finally Just how small it was, and mean. Is it nostalgia For the limited that makes the days go quickly, Tracing out their spirals of diminishing concern? Like all the boys who lived on Westland Avenue, I learned to follow the trails through the canyon, Shoot at birds with a BB gun, and dream of leaving. What are books? To me they seemed like mirrors Holding up a vision of the social, in which people, Beckoning from their inaccessible preserves Like forgotten toys, afforded glimpses of those Evanescent worlds that certain minor writers —Raymond Chandler say, or even Rupert Brooke— Could visualize somehow, and bring to life again. And though these worlds were sometimes difficult to see, Once having seen them one returned to find the words Still there, like a part of the surroundings Compliant to one’s will. Yet these are attitudes, And each age has its separate store of attitudes, Its store of tropes—“In Grantchester, in Grantchester!—” That filter through its dreams and fill its songs. Hume tried to show that sympathy alone allows “The happiness of strangers” to affect our lives. Yet now and then a phrase, echoing in the mind Long after its occasion, seems to resurrect A world I think I recognize, and never saw. For what was there to see? Some houses on a hill Next to a small stream? A village filled with people I couldn’t understand? Could anyone have seen the Transitory sweetness of the Georgians’ England And the world before the War, before The Waste Land? Years are secrets, and their memories are often Stories of a past that no one witnessed, like the Fantasies of home one builds to rationalize The ordinary way one’s life has gone since then. Words seem to crystallize that life in pictures— In a postcard of a vicarage, or of a canyon Wedged between the desert and an endless ocean— But their clarity is fleeting. I can nearly See the coast from here, and as I hear the engines And the bell chimes, all those images dissolve. And then I start to hear the murmur of that Constant voice as distant from me as a landscape Studied from an airplane: a contingent person With a particular mind, and a particular will, Descending across a desert, westward over mountains And the sparsely peopled scrub beyond the city, Pocked with half-filled reservoirs and rudimentary Trails with nothing waiting for me at the end —“And is there honey still for tea?”— But isolated houses nestled in the hills.

Written January 1718 in the Chiosk at Pera overlooking Constantinople Give me Great God (said I) a Little Farm in Summer shady, & in Winter warm where a cool spring gives birth to a clear brook by Nature slideing down a mossy Rock Not artfully in Leaden Pipes convey'd Or greatly falling in a forc'd Cascade Pure & unsully'd winding throu' y e Shade. All bounteous Heaven has added to my Praier a softer Climate and a purer Air. Our Frozen Isle now chilling Winter binds Deform'd by Rains, & rough w th blasting Winds y e wither'd Woods grown white w th hoary Frost by driving storms their scatter'd beautys lost The Trembling birds their leaveless coverts shun And seek in distant Climes a warmer Sun The Water Nymphs their silenced Urns deplore Even Thames benumb'd a River now no more The barren Meadows give no more delight by Glist'ning Snows made painfull to y e Sight. Here Summer reigns w th one Eternal Smile And double Harvests bless y e happy Soil. Fair, fertile Fields to w ar m Indulgent Heaven Has every Charm of every Season given! No Killing Cold deforms y e Beauteous Year The springing Flowers no coming Winter Fear But as y e Parent Rose decays & dies y e Infant Buds w th brighter Colours rise And with fresh sweets y e Mother-scent supplys Near th e m the Vi'let glows w th odours blest And blooms in more than Tyrian Purple drest The rich Jonquils their golden gleam display And shine in glorys emulateing day. These chearfull Groves their living Leaves retain The Streams still murmur undefil'd by Rain And growing Green adorns y e Fruitfull Plain The warbling Kind uninterrupted Sing, Warm'd w th Enjoyment of perpetual Spring. Here from my Window I at once survey The crouded City, & resounding Sea In distant Views see Assian Mountains rise And Lose their Snowy Summits in y e Skies. Above those Mountains high Olympus Tow'rs The Parliamental Seat of Heavenly Powers. New to y e Sight my ravish'd Eyes admire Each guilded Crescent & each Antique Spire The Fair Serail where sunk in Idle ease The Lazy Monarch melts his thoughtless days The Marble Mosques beneath whose Ample Domes Fierce Warlike Sultans sleep in peacefull Tombs Those lofty Structures once the Christian boast Their Names, their Honnours, & their Beautys lost Those Altars bright w th Gold, w th Sculpture grac'd By barbarous Zeal of savage Foes defac'd Convents where Emperors profess'd of old The Labour'd Pillars that their Triumphs told. Vain Monuments of Men that once were great! Sunk, undistinguish'd, by one Common Fate! How art thou falln Imperial City, Low! Where are thy Hopes of Roman Glory now? Where are thy Palaces by Prelates rais'd Where preistly Pomp in Purple Lustre blaz'd? So vast, that Youthfull Kings might there reside So Splendid; to content a Patriarchs pride Where Grecian Artists all their skill displayd Before y e happy Sciences decay'd; So vast, that Youthfull Kings might there reside So Splendid; to content a Patriarchs Pride; Convents where Emperors proffess'd of Old, The Labour'd Pillars that their Triumphs told, Vain Monuments of Men that once were great! Sunk, undistinguish'd in one common Fate! One Little Spot, the small Fenar contains, Of Greek Nobillity, the poor Remains, Where other Helens show like powerfull Charms As once engag'd the Warring World in Arms: Those Names that Roial Auncestry can boast In mean Mechanic Arts obscurely lost Those Eyes a second Homer might inspire, fix'd at the Loom, destroy their useless Fire. Greiv'd at a view w hi ch strikes vpon my Mind The short liv'd Vanity of Human kind In Gaudy Objects I indulge my Sight, And turn where Eastern Pomp gives gay delight. See; the vast Train in various Habits dress'd! By the Bright Seymetar and Sable Vest; The Vizier proud, distinguish'd o're the rest! Six slaves in gay Attire his Bridle hold; His Bridle rough with Gems, his Stirups Gold; His Snowy Steed adorn'd with lavish Pride Whole Troops of Soldiers mounted by his Side, These toss the Plumy Crest, Arabian Coursers guide. With awfull Duty all decline their Eyes, No bellowing Shouts of noisy Crouds arise; Silence in solemn State the march attends Till at the dread Divan the slow processions ends. Yet not these Objects all profusely Gay, The Gilded Navy that adorns the Sea, The riseing City in Confusion fair; Magnificently form'd irregular Where Woods and Palaces at once surprise Gardens, on Gardens, Domes on Domes arise And endless Beauties tire the wandering Eyes, So sooths my Wishes, or so charms my Mind, As this Retreat, secure from Human kind. No Knaves successfull Craft does Spleen excite No Coxcombs tawdry Splendour shocks my Sight; No Mob Alarm awakes my Female Fears, No unrewarded Merit asks my Tears; Nor Praise my Mind, nor Envy hurts my Ear, Even Fame it selfe can hardly reach me here, Impertinence with all her Tattling Train Fair-sounding Flatterys delicious Bane Censorious Folly; Noisy Party Rage; The Thousand with which she must engage Who dare have Virtue in a Vicious Age.

Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience the poet like an acrobat climbs on rime to a high wire of his own making and balancing on eyebeams above a sea of faces paces his way to the other side of day performing entrechats and sleight-of-foot tricks and other high theatrics and all without mistaking any thing for what it may not be For he's the super realist who must perforce perceive taut truth before the taking of each stance or step in his supposed advance toward that still higher perch where Beauty stands and waits with gravity to start her death-defying leap And he a little charleychaplin man who may or may not catch her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air of existence

You take a rock, your hand is hard. You raise your eyes, and there's a pair of small beloveds, caught in pails. The monocle and eyepatch correspond. You take a glove, your hand is soft. The ocean floor was done in lizardskin. Around a log or snag the surface currents run like lumber about a knot. A boat is bent to sea—we favor the medium we're in, our shape's around us. It takes time. At night, the bed alive, what teller of truth could tell the two apart? Lover, beloved, hope is command. Your hand is given, when you take a hand.

for Elizabeth Bishop You said to me that day, “There’s nothing you can do,” and spoke of Auden’s line: “Poetry makes nothing happen.” And though I honor you, especially your poems, the objects you dipped in light, then, left in the rainbow, let slip from our sight, I admitted, diving out of self, a sweet woman’s white caress, the hundreds of lives and places in books, failed to counter confusion. You did agree that it was Socrates who said to his Athenian friends that governments are only governments with many heads and cannot think as one. That history continues to show how they swing from war to peace and back again, in one wide gallow-sweep just as the pendulum of the world’s clocks returned its towns to craters. Now I must ask myself, fifteen cobalt-blue years later, if the dust of each new war that settles in our bones, and deadens a generation, is no more than negatives of the Kennedys, King, and Lennon, has less weight than what we felt the day the Apollo spaceship landed on the moon, and Auden’s line is true, then why did you to the end, live with the dark, sing into your ruin?

and sex once a day a week a month a year goes by and one hyacinth only returns, frail blue against the militant grass that does cover all in the residential precinct of the New England town its roads long paved old Indian trails the steps they took toward us the first exchange for a fish two biscuits