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These lovers’ inklings which our loves enmesh, Lost to the cunning and dimensional eye, Though tenemented in the selves we see, Not more perforce than azure to the sky, Were necromancy-juggled to the flesh, And startled from no daylight you or me. For trance and silvemess those moons commend, Which blanch the warm life silver-pale; or look What ghostly portent mist distorts from slight Clay shapes; the willows that the waters took Liquid and brightened in the waters bend, And we, in love’s reflex, seemed loved of right. Then no more think to net forthwith love’s thing, But cast for it by spirit sleight-of-hand; Then only in the slant glass contemplate, Where lineament outstripping line is scanned, Then on the perplexed text leave pondering, Love’s proverb is set down transliterate.

Whom should I consult? Philosophers Are happy in their homes and seminars. See this one with the mischievous bright childlike Gaze going out through walls and air, A tangent to the bent rays of the star. Hear the chalk splutter, hear the groping voice: Conceive the demiurge in his perpetual Strife with the chaos of the universe, That humming equilibrium of creation Pure and enormous, crossed by the constant Light of unimaginable combustion: Teems, how it teems. An elm tree sighs Beyond the dusty windowledge of June. As in the mind the notes of a melody Vibrate when vibration’s gone, a series Generated by a decimal has no end; Observe it closely, though; it stops when it stops. The frail spectacles are bedimmed with spring. But whom should I consult? Well-seasoned men, Ruddy with business or the salty summer, Autumnal in their woolens, gaze Toward the quick plumes above the city. A frosty morning sun reddens the river. This one is meditative and well-qualified: Decently shined, one heavy saddle-dark Perforated brogan swings from the swivel Chair arm; leaning back, the head Well-cropped and grey, the experienced Eyes quiet, with one highlighted pupil. A reader of Herodotus in the evening. The road was in receivership, the mills Were in receivership, the bondholders Suitably informed would not dissent From an able plan of reorganization. Easy did it. And his beautiful daughters Sink in a circle of white skirts like daisies, Laughing for the brash photographer. Years ago they sailed to the North Cape, Made out that flecked mass in the East With Mother and the broad-shouldered boy from Cook’s On deck in the dim summer on the grey Sea. Often they saw the fishermen Off Cherbourg in the awe of morning hitting The outside spanking seas: red sails in sea-light. Far away in the nursery a music box Plucks its icy Bavarian tune for them. Then whom? A thousand flashes from Long Island Enter the high room in the office building, A heliograph of cars turning toward sunset. Will he decipher them? The journalist Sweats in his shirtsleeves, mutilates Cigarettes in a smouldering tray, surveys Me and the world in a racket of teletypes, Sick of it and excited, needing a drink. Positive copy sprouts from the typewriter, Each paragraph a piston stroke. The sun Glitters on Hackensack, sorrows on the land, Goes out like a pliant egg sucked down a bottle. Under the shadowing azure a violet Dusk consumes the sharp walls of the world. The melancholy distributor of wit Snatches at straws amid the alien darkness, A whirl of dusty danger. For his retreat The priest lifts up the monstrance, muttering Abstracted Latin to the tinkle behind him. Presently they will bawl the Stabat Mater. And all those years at seminary, reading St. Basil and Jerome, girding his cassock For handball in the gritty cement courtyard Under the swooping smoke of the powerhouse; And ordination when the folks from Chicago Wept before the bishop. Mortify The flesh. Think on thy last end. Pray The Holy Mother of God in her infinite mercy, And Him who rests in the dark chapel always, Where the wick burns in wax, a cuddling flame: Deduced by Thomas from the tip of heaven. Or should I tumble to the recumbent Confessional, and the scientist of distress? For any child the terror in the night, The hating eyes by day may be Death’s cunning orchestration: they prepare The servant’s cry at last, absolute and lonely. See this easy gentleman in tweeds, Deepchested, a swimmer to the farthest light, Diagnostician of the subaqueous Faces of dreams: with patience like a lover He must all day sustain his authority, Must not be bored, merciful or amused. Or the anatomist and healer of bones? Trepanner, skilled in suturing, the masked And sterile hero in the cone of light; There the sweet ether cone must be inhaled With one, two pulses of the fiery spiral Singing into timeless speed or quiet: A mound under a sheet, a square of pale Mortal flesh incised in a seeping line, Spreading its lips for pretty butchery. Blankets, hypodermics and high fever, Racing delirium in the ward; the tall screen Efficiently deployed at the bedside; Intravenous ministrations: charts: starch: And how is he today. Pretty good, doc. Or else the fly sits down on the dead face In the dead sunny room. Shall I have speech With those undone by the world’s great memory? Men translated by music, treasurers Of the French phrase, the childhood images, Unregarded announcers of prophecy; Staring blind at the stained wall paper In their nightly rooms; their dreadful hearts Beating the beds where other hearts have slept Like birds under the night wind of time. See this one whom the currents under earth Intoxicate, and the flosses of the sky: Weeping, weeping in vanity and grief He walks toward remote dawn in the empty city, Facing the cold draft, fish-smell from the river, Necessitous of love. Masters of intricate Fancy, libertines of intelligence, I. Until Jove let it be, no colonist Mastered the wild earth; no land was marked, None parceled out or shared; but everyone Looked for his living in the common wold. And Jove gave poison to the blacksnakes, and Made the wolves ravage, made the ocean roll, Knocked honey from the leaves, took fire away— So man might beat out various inventions By reasoning and art. First he chipped fire Out of the veins of flint where it was hidden; Then rivers felt his skiffs of the light alder; Then sailors counted up the stars and named them: Pleiades, Hyades, and the Pole Star; Then were discovered ways to take wild things. In snares, or hunt them with the circling pack; And how to whip a stream with casting nets, Or draw the deep-sea fisherman’s cordage up; And then the use of steel and the shrieking saw; Then various crafts. All things were overcome By labor and by force of bitter need. II. Even when your threshing floor is leveled By the big roller, smoothed and packed by hand With potter’s clay, so that it will not crack, There are still nuisances. The tiny mouse Locates his house and granary underground, Or the blind mole tunnels his dark chamber; The toad, too, and all monsters of the earth, Besides those plunderers of the grain, the weevil And frantic ant, scared of a poor old age. Let me speak then, too, of the farmer’s weapons: The heavy oaken plow and the plowshare, The slowly rolling carts of Demeter, The threshing machine, the sledge, the weighted mattock, The withe baskets, the cheap furniture, The harrow and the magic winnowing fan— All that your foresight makes provision of, If you still favor the divine countryside. III. Moreover, like men tempted by the straits In ships borne homeward through the blowing sea, We too must reckon on Arcturus star, The days of luminous Draco and the Kids. When Libra makes the hours of sleep and daylight Equal, dividing the world, half light, half dark, Then drive the team, and sow the field with barley, Even under intractable winter’s rain. But Spring is the time to sow your beans and clover, When shining Taurus opens the year with his golden Horns, and the Dog’s averted star declines; For greater harvests of your wheat and spelt, Let first the Pleiades and Hyades be hid And Ariadne’s diadem go down. The golden sun rules the great firmament Through the twelve constellations, and the world Is measured out in certain parts, and heaven By five great zones is taken up entire: One glowing with sundazzle and fierce heat; And far away on either side the arctics, Frozen with ice and rain, cerulean; And, in between, two zones for sick mankind: Through each of these a slanting path is cut Where pass in line the zodiacal stars. Northward the steep world rises to Scythia And south of Libya descends, where black Styx and the lowest of the dead look on. In the north sky the Snake glides like a river Winding about the Great and Little Bear— Those stars that fear forever the touch of ocean; Southward they say profound Night, mother of Furies, Sits tight-lipped among the crowding shades, Or thence Aurora draws the daylight back; And where the East exhales the yellow morning, Reddening evening lights her stars at last. IV. As for the winter, when the freezing rains Confine the farmer, he may employ himself In preparations for serener seasons. The plowman beats the plowshare on the forge, Or makes his vats of tree-trunks hollowed out, Brands his cattle, numbers his piles of grain, Sharpens fence posts or pitchforks, prepares Umbrian trellises for the slow vine. Then you may weave the baskets of bramble twigs Or dip your bleating flock in the clean stream. Often the farmer loads his little mule With olive oil or apples, and brings home A grindstone or a block of pitch from market. And some will stay up late beside the fire On winter nights, whittling torches, while The housewife runs the shuttle through the loom And comforts the long labor with her singing; Or at the stove she simmers the new wine, Skimming the froth with leaves. Oh idle time! In that hale season, all their worries past, Farmers arrange convivialities— As after laden ships have reached home port, The happy sailors load the prow with garlands. Then is the time to gather acorns and Laurel berries and the bloodred myrtle, To lay your traps for cranes and snares for buck, To hit the fallow deer with twisted slingshots, And track the long-eared hare— When snow is deep, and ice is on the rivers. V. What of the humors and the ways of Autumn? Just when the farmer wished to reap his yellow Fields, and thresh his grain, I have often seen all the winds make war, Flattening the stout crops from the very roots; And in the black whirlwind Carrying off the ears and the light straw. And often mighty phalanxes of rain Marched out of heaven, as the clouds Rolled up from the sea the detestable tempest; Then the steep aether thundered, and the deluge Soaked the crops, filled ditches, made the rivers Rise and roar and seethe in their spuming beds. The Father himself in the mid stormy night Lets the lightning go, at whose downstroke Enormous earth quivers, wild things flee, And fear abases the prone hearts of men— As Jove splits Athos with his firebolt Or Rhodope or the Ceraunian ridge. The southwind wails in sheets of rain, And under that great wind the groves Lament, and the long breast of the shore is shaken. If you dislike to be so caught, mark well The moon’s phases and the weather signs; Notice where Saturn’s frigid star retires, Mercury’s wanderings over heaven; and revere Especially, the gods. Offer to Ceres Annual sacrifice and annual worship In the first fair weather of the spring, So may your sheep grow fat and your vines fruitful, Your sleep sweet and your mountains full of shade. Let all the country folk come to adore her, And offer her libations of milk and wine; Conduct the sacrificial lamb three times Around the ripe field, in processional, With all your chorus singing out to Ceres; And let no man lay scythe against his grain Unless he first bind oakleaves on his head And make his little dance, and sing to her. VI. When shall we herd the cattle to the stables? The wind, say, rises without intermission; The sea gets choppy and the swell increases; The dry crash of boughs is heard on hills; The long sound of the surf becomes a tumult; The gusts become more frequent in the grove; The waves begin to fight against the keels; From far at sea the gulls fly shoreward crying; The heron leaves his favorite marsh and soars Over the high cloud. Then you will see Beyond thin skimrack, shooting stars Falling, the long pale tracks behind them Whitening through the darkness of the night; And you’ll see straw and fallen leaves blowing. But when it thunders in rough Boreas’ quarter, When east and west it thunders—every sailor Furls his dripping sail. A storm should never catch you unprepared. Aerial cranes take flight before its rising, The restless heifer with dilated nostrils Sniffs the air; the squeaking hirondelle Flits round and round the lake, and frogs, Inveterate in their mud, croak a chorale. And too the ant, more frantic in his gallery, Trundles his eggs out from their hiding place; The rainbow, cloud imbiber, may be seen; And crows go cawing from the pasture In a harsh throng of crepitating wings; The jeering jay gives out his yell for rain And takes a walk by himself on the dry sand. Stormwise, the various sea-fowl, and such birds As grub the sweet Swan River in Asia, May be observed dousing themselves and diving Or riding on the water, as if they wished— What odd exhilaration—to bathe themselves. VII. After a storm, clear weather and continuing Sunny days may likewise be foretold: By the sharp twinkle of the stars, the moon Rising to face her brother’s rays by day; No tenuous fleeces blowing in the sky, No halcyons, sea favorites, on the shore Stretching out their wings in tepid sunlight; But mists go lower and lie on the fields, The owl, observing sundown from his perch, Modulates his meaningless melancholy. Aloft in crystal air the sparrow hawk Chases his prey; and as she flits aside The fierce hawk follows screaming on the wind, And as he swoops, she flits aside again. With funereal contractions of the windpipe The crows produce their caws, three at a time, And in their high nests, pleased at I know not what, Noise it among themselves: no doubt rejoicing To see their little brood after the storm, But not, I think, by reason of divine Insight or superior grasp of things. VIII. But if you carefully watch the rapid sun And the moon following, a fair night’s snare Never deceives you as to next day’s weather. When the new moon collects a rim of light, If that bow be obscured with a dark vapor, Then a great tempest is in preparation; If it be blushing like a virgin’s cheek, There will be wind; wind makes Diana blush; If on the fourth night (most significant) She goes pure and unclouded through the sky, All that day and the following days will be, For one full month, exempt from rain and wind. The sun, too, rising and setting in the waves, Will give you weather signs, trustworthy ones Whether at morning or when stars come out. A mackerel sky over the east at sunrise Means look out for squalls, a gale is coming, Unfavorable to trees and plants and flocks. Or when through denser strata the sun’s rays Break out dimly, or Aurora rises Pale from Tithonus’ crocus-colored chamber, Alas, the vine-leaf will not shield the cluster In the hubbub of roof-pattering bitter hail. It will be well to notice sunset, too, For the sun’s visage then has various colors; Bluish and dark means rain; if it be fiery That means an East wind; if it be dappled And mixed with red gold light, then you will see Wind and rain in commotion everywhere. Nobody can advise me, on that night, To cast off hawsers and put out to sea. But if the next day passes and the sunset Then be clear, you need not fear the weather: A bright Norther will sway the forest trees. IX. Last, what the late dusk brings, and whence the fair Clouds are blown, and secrets of the Southwind You may learn from the sun, whose prophecies No man denies, seeing black insurrections, Treacheries, and wars are told by him. When Caesar died, the great sun pitied Rome, So veiling his bright head, the godless time Trembled in fear of everlasting night; And then were portents given of earth and ocean, Vile dogs upon the roads, and hideous Strange birds, and Aetna quaking, and her fires Bursting to overflow the Cyclops’ fields With flames whirled in the air and melted stones. Thunder of war was heard in Germany From south to north, shaking the granite Alps; And a voice also through the silent groves Piercing; and apparitions wondrous pale Were seen in dead of night. Then cattle spoke (O horror!), streams stood still, the earth cracked open And tears sprang even from the temple bronze. The Po, monarch of rivers, on his back Spuming whole forests, raced through the lowland plains And bore off pens and herds; and then continually The viscera of beasts were thick with evil, Blood trickled from the springs; tall towns at night Re-echoed to the wolf-pack’s shivering howl; And never from pure heaven have there fallen So many fires, nor baleful comets burned. It seemed that once again the Roman lines, Alike in arms, would fight at Philippi; And heaven permitted those Thessalian fields To be enriched again with blood of ours. Some future day, perhaps, in that country, A farmer with his plow will turn the ground, And find the javelins eaten thin with rust, Or knock the empty helmets with his mattock And wonder, digging up those ancient bones. Paternal gods! Ancestors! Mother Vesta! You that guard Tiber and the Palatine! Now that long century is overthrown, Let not this young man fail to give us peace! Long enough beneath your rule, O Caesar, Heaven has hated us and all those triumphs Where justice was thrown down—so many wars, So many kinds of wickedness! No honor Rendered the plow, but the fields gone to ruin, The country-folk made homeless, and their scythes Beaten to straight swords on the blowing forge! War from the Euphrates to Germany; Ruptured engagements, violence of nations, And impious Mars raging the whole world over— As when a four horsed chariot rears away Plunging from the barrier, and runs wild, Heedless of the reins or the charioteer. Terrorizers of themselves, laughers in Language and priests of any mystery— Not by authority. What of the revered Historian, the painstaking public man? His dusty briefcase worn to a splitting bulge, The scholar descending from the library Smiles at the doves, and at the glowing grass. Letters gone frail and yellow in their strings Spill fuzz and dust from the stuck folds: It might be inferred from what the ambassador Wrote to his daughter in Virginia That others were privy to the situation. These judges are gentle and well-cultivated Honorable stylists, penetrating men, Mirrors of duplicity and bewilderment, Mirrors of magnificent deep-rooted structural Policy and implacable miscarriage. The documents are all photostated, the files Arranged. Let humane logic Guide them in the wilderness of the State. The pallid husbandman grunts at his fields, Sells his new lambs in the damp of March, Thumbs the slick catalogue of the mail order House for ginghams for the girls of summer; Chews with the county agent at the gate. He will be ruddy as the sun goes over, The clouds go over, the tractor shudders on Through the high fields. The piling west will grow Fractious with lightning, the wild branches bend, Curtains blow out like goodbye handkerchiefs Hilarious in the gloomy wind. Autumn Comes with marriages to the aging house, Winter comes with comforts and old death. Still the farmer’s dull hand holds the seed; The low star glimmers on the dewy sill.

Survival is the final offer that arrives at the eleventh hour just when pain to the tenth power would kill you with another ninth degree. By then, relief strikes you brief as an eighth note; you wear doom proudly; it's your seventh seal. But life whispers through your sixth sense of what might await you in some fifth dimension where miracle is saved for the fourth quarter. Tricked, you sigh and rise on the third day. You know better, but with no second thought, risk that first step—absurd as first love at first sight— as if you were back at ground zero, as if it cost nothing, as if this were not the last laugh.

Christ God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, Chose time and place and company To suit it; when he struck at length My honour, 't was with all his strength. And doubtlessly, ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw Few half so happy as I seemed, While being dressed in queen's array To give our tourney prize away. I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves; 't was all their deed; God makes, or fair or foul, our face; If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped. They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast; Not needing to be crowned, I mean, As I do. E'en when I was dressed, Had either of them spoke, instead Of glancing sideways with still head! But no: they let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs, And so descend the castle-stairs- And come out on the morning troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, And called me queen, and made me stoop Under the canopy-(a streak That pierced it, of the outside sun, Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)- And they could let me take my state And foolish throne amid applause Of all come there to celebrate My queen's-day-Oh I think the cause Of much was, they forgot no crowd Makes up for parents in their shroud! However that be, all eyes were bent Upon me, when my cousins cast Theirs down; 't was time I should present The victor's crown, but ... there, 't will last No long time ... the old mist again Blinds me as then it did. How vain! See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk With his two boys: I can proceed. Well, at that moment, who should stalk Forth boldly-to my face, indeed- But Gauthier? and he thundered "Stay!" And all stayed. "Bring no crowns, I say! "Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet "About her! Let her shun the chaste, "Or lay herself before their feet! "Shall she, whose body I embraced "A night long, queen it in the day? "For honour's sake no crowns, I say!" I? What I answered? As I live, I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul. Till out strode Gismond; then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan; would who spend A minute's mistrust on the end? He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead. This glads me most, that I enjoyed The heart o' the joy, with my content In watching Gismond unalloyed By any doubt of the event: God took that on him-I was bid Watch Gismond for my part: I did. Did I not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot ... my memory leaves No least stamp out nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground: Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, Cleaving till out the truth he clove. Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said, "Here die, but end thy breath "In full confession, lest thou fleet "From my first, to God's second death! "Say, hast thou lied? "And, "I have lied "To God and her,"he said, and died. Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked -What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked My powers for ever, to a third Dear even as you are. Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast. Over my head his arm he flung Against the world; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt: For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile. So, 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth to never more Return. My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place God lighten! May his soul find grace! Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow, tho' when his brother's black Full eye shows scorn, it ... Gismond here? And have you brought my tercel back? I was just telling Adela How many birds it struck since May.

We’d gained our first objective hours before While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, Pallid, unshaven and thirsty, blind with smoke. Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud, Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime. And then the rain began,—the jolly old rain! A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, Staring across the morning blear with fog; He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; And then, of course, they started with five-nines Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. An officer came blundering down the trench: “Stand-to and man the fire step!” On he went ... Gasping and bawling, “Fire-step ... counter-attack!” Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; And stumbling figures looming out in front. “O Christ, they’re coming at us!” Bullets spat, And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... And started blazing wildly ... then a bang Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans ... Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.

I wish I could keep my thoughts in order and my ducks in a row. I wish I could keep my ducks in a thought or my thoughts in a duck. My point is that we all exist, wetly, in the hunt. The ducks are aware of this in their own way, which is floating. The way of the mind is brevity. There may be other thoughts on other days in the minds of other and better men and their constant companions, the women, but these same tidy capsules — never. This is just one of the things I noticed about my thoughts as they passed easefully by.

Harry Franck, from the United States of America - Census Enumerator I came to Panama planning to dig the Eighth Wonder of the World, but I was told that white men should never be seen working with shovels, so I took a police job, and now I've been transferred to the census. I roam the jungle, counting laborers who live in shanties and those who live on the run, fugitives who are too angry to keep working for silver in a system where they know that others earn gold. When islanders see me coming, they're afraid of trouble, even though I can't arrest them anymore—now all I need is a record of their names, ages, homelands, and colors. The rules of this census confound me. I'm expected to count white Jamaicans as dark and every shade of Spaniard as semi-white, so that Americans can pretend there's only one color in each country. How am I supposed to enumerate this kid with the Cuban accent? His skin is medium, but his eyes are green. And what about that Puerto Rican scientist, who speaks like a New York professor, or the girl who says she doesn't know where she was born or who her parents are—she could be part native, or part French, Jamaican, Chinese ... She could even be part American, from people who passed through here way back in gold rush days. Counting feels just as impossible as turning solid mountains into a ditch.

How did I get so old, I wonder, contemplating my 67th birthday. Dyslexia smiles: I’m 76 in fact. There are places where at 60 they start counting backwards; in Japan they start again from one. But the numbers hardly matter. It’s the physics of acceleration I mind, the way time speeds up as if it hasn’t guessed the destination— where look! I see my mother and father bearing a cake, waiting for me at the starting line.

I . Sleep faster, my son says. He’s poking at my eyelids, pulling at the pillows, the helicopter hum of anticipation rising in his throat as I reach out and spin him onto the bed. I want to set my heels once more in the soft underbelly of his childhood, airlift him from danger, from disease, from all his fears, which are maybe not even his fears at all, but only mine. Yet now as he hovers above me, my body splayed out like my father’s before me, my every breath is less a prayer than a love letter torn open in desperation. II. Remember, I say, when we counted to six million, a visualization of tragedy, one half hour a day for two years, and that, for the tribe only; it would take another whole year for the gypsies, the Catholics, the gays, the foreigners, the Negroes, the artists, the philosophers, etc. You were barely six at the time, your mother wondering what the hell I was thinking, and even now I can’t fathom why I didn’t just hold you close— It would have taken only a moment— And say whatever it was that I really wanted to say. III. I’m watching Batman reruns when the telephone rings. Holy Charoset, I yell at the kitchen wall,call back later. Maybe I threw some raisins, I don’t remember. We’re already married, your mother and I, but at the time, don’t ask, I was living alone. And so I’m laughing, mostly from boredom, but still, laughing, while my father lay dying, gasping for breath in some dirty gutter, gunned down for a half-empty briefcase, a gefilte fish sandwich, and a New York Post which the next day would have his picture on the twenty-eighth page; one more dead Jew. IV. You burst into the room, fifth grade facts burning your tongue like Moses’ coal.100 people die every minute, you tell me as I turn down the TV; and then, gleefully:50 since I’ve been in this room, and now 75 and now . . . O my little census bureau, my prince of darkness, my prophet of numbers, riddle me this: how many grains of sand before you can call it a desert? And where were you the day Kennedy was shot? CNN, interrupting, asks. My grandmother clicks her tongue like she’s chopping onions in the old country . Poor boy, she says, pointing. And there’s John-John again, waving that little flag, still saluting. V. And who will remember my father when I am gone? And how many have died since his death? And what’s one more. or one less. And what do I know of my father’s father? I’m waiting outside, engine humming, as my son, eighteen, registers. And now he’s shouting, running towards me, arms pumping above his head. He’s Moses the moment before spying the golden calf. He’s his great grandfather crawling underground to freedom. He’s my father flying medical supplies, surviving the crash. My mother must have held him close.You’re home, she cries , safe. VI. Vietnam, I say, or Sarajevo.  Afghanistan, my son answers, or Iraq. My father would have said Germany. He could have said Japan. Nobody says anonymously. Nobody says Gotham. Korea, my cousin says, or Kosovo.  My great grandfather says South Africa. His great grandfather says Spain. Somebody says Egypt now; somebody, Egypt then. Nobody says suddenly. Nobody says Brooklyn. I’m counting myself to sleep, when my wife hears a sound at the door.Careful, she whispers. We’re alone, in an empty house; my every breath reminding me I’m older than my father, on the day of his death. VII. There are more people breathing this very moment, my son insists, than have ever died. He’s home from college, so I don’t double-check. He’s driven a long way to surprise me on my birthday. Are you sure you can’t stay, I ask, holding him close. He looks full of hope; a woman I’ve never seen before at his side. Welcome home, I tell my wife. She’s just turned twenty-four. I’m childless, fatherless. It’s the day of the funeral; Nineteen years until the twin towers. Three thousand since Moses murdered the overseer. But that’s not what I’m thinking.One,two, three, she says, guiding me inside. How could we not fall back in love?

But it could not be brought to see what it could be brought. And the leaves are away again, teamed. A parent at the last and a parent in the middle. And as stones I thought it right. Two plates, and on the other side all the forest pieces. The clock says stay. The books lower the earth, and in gardens flat stones spin. The volume was of waiting. Today is today, until the preposition taken up. Next to the tree sways. The sky in pieces the leaves part the leaves piece together. To and from a hand given all directions. The bark comes from below. Takes from the books of the moves under the sky. Speaker holds up the talks held last. Motors the dust and the yellow syllables. A slant on which was never here or only partly.