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When I was down beside the sea A wooden spade they gave to me To dig the sandy shore. My holes were empty like a cup. In every hole the sea came up Till it could come no more.

This is the song of the mud, The pale yellow glistening mud that covers the hills like satin; The grey gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys; The frothing, squirting, spurting, liquid mud that gurgles along the road beds; The thick elastic mud that is kneaded and pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses; The invincible, inexhaustible mud of the war zone. This is the song of the mud, the uniform of the poilu. His coat is of mud, his great dragging flapping coat, that is too big for him and too heavy; His coat that once was blue and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes to it. This is the mud that clothes him. His trousers and boots are of mud, And his skin is of mud; And there is mud in his beard. His head is crowned with a helmet of mud. He wears it well. He wears it as a king wears the ermine that bores him. He has set a new style in clothing; He has introduced the chic of mud. This is the song of the mud that wriggles its way into battle. The impertinent, the intrusive, the ubiquitous, the unwelcome, The slimy inveterate nuisance, That fills the trenches, That mixes in with the food of the soldiers, That spoils the working of motors and crawls into their secret parts, That spreads itself over the guns, That sucks the guns down and holds them fast in its slimy voluminous lips, That has no respect for destruction and muzzles the bursting shells; And slowly, softly, easily, Soaks up the fire, the noise; soaks up the energy and the courage; Soaks up the power of armies; Soaks up the battle. Just soaks it up and thus stops it. This is the hymn of mud-the obscene, the filthy, the putrid, The vast liquid grave of our armies. It has drowned our men. Its monstrous distended belly reeks with the undigested dead. Our men have gone into it, sinking slowly, and struggling and slowly disappearing. Our fine men, our brave, strong, young men; Our glowing red, shouting, brawny men. Slowly, inch by inch, they have gone down into it, Into its darkness, its thickness, its silence. Slowly, irresistibly, it drew them down, sucked them down, And they were drowned in thick, bitter, heaving mud. Now it hides them, Oh, so many of them! Under its smooth glistening surface it is hiding them blandly. There is not a trace of them. There is no mark where they went down. The mute enormous mouth of the mud has closed over them. This is the song of the mud, The beautiful glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin; The mysterious gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys. Mud, the disguise of the war zone; Mud, the mantle of battles; Mud, the smooth fluid grave of our soldiers: This is the song of the mud.

Here, where God lives among the trees, Where birds and monks the whole day sing His praises in a pleasant ease, O heart, might we not find a home Here, after all our wandering? These gates are closed, even on Rome. Souls of the twilight wander here; Here, in the garden of that death Which was for love's sake, need we fear How sharp with bitter joy might be Love's lingering, last, longed-for breath, Shut in upon eternity?

Mark the first page of the book with a red marker. For, in the beginning, the wound is invisible. - Reb Alcé "What is going on behind this door?" "A book is shedding its leaves." "What is the story of the book?" "Becoming aware of a scream." "I saw rabbis go in." "They are privileged readers. They come in small groups to give us their comments." "Have they read the book?" "They are reading it." "Did they happen by for the fun of it?" "They foresaw the book. They are prepared to encounter it." "Do they know the characters?" "They know our martyrs." "Where is the book set?" "In the book." "Who are you?" "I am the keeper of the house." "Where do you come from?" "I have wandered." "Is Yukel your friend?" "I am like Yukel." "What is your lot?" "To open the book." "Are you in the book?" "My place is at the threshold." "What have you tried to learn?" "I sometimes stop on the road to the sources and question the signs, the world of my ancestors." "You examine recaptured words." "The nights and mornings of the syllables which are mine, yes." "Your mind is wandering." "I have been wandering for two thousand years." "I have trouble following you." "I, too, have often tried to give up." "Do we have a tale here?" "My story has been told so many times." "What is your story?" "Ours, insofar as it is absent." "I do not understand." "Speaking tortures me." "Where are you?" "In what I say." "What is your truth?" "What lacerates me." "And your salvation?" "Forgetting what I said." "May I come in? It is getting dark." "In each word there burns a wick." "May I come in? It is getting dark around my soul." "It is dark around me, too." "What can you do for me?" "Your share of luck is in yourself." "Writing for the sake of writing does nothing but show contempt." "Man is a written bond and place." "I hate what is said in place I have left behind." "You trade in the future, which is immediately translated. What you have left is you without you." "You oppose me to myself. How could I ever win this fight?" "Defeat is the price agreed on." "You are a Jew, and you talk like one." "The four letters JUIF which designate my origin are your four fingers. You can use your thumb to crush me." "You are a Jew, and you talk like one. But I am cold. It is dark. Let me come into the house." "There is a lamp on my table. And the house is in the book." "So I will live in the house after all." "You will follow the book, whose every page is an abyss where the wing shines with the name."

I wondered how long I could go on once the rain had stopped. My nerves were wedged like wings under a hat. Corncobs bobbed in boiling water. I kept a fist in my mouth. I was strident. The neat house curved like a draining sink. Hot cars shined outside. Their engines snapped like a chamois. I never wanted to leave. The streets were suet-thick. The hucksters had tinny voices. They had swollen drums. They had gravel underfoot and tongues that could peel citrus. Radios throbbed. The wet hush of my breath flung itself to mother. The soft dark skin. The sweet curl of the arm. The hum.

This is the field where the battle did not happen, where the unknown soldier did not die. This is the field where grass joined hands, where no monument stands, and the only heroic thing is the sky. Birds fly here without any sound, unfolding their wings across the open. No people killed—or were killed—on this ground hallowed by neglect and an air so tame that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

Lubbock, Texas Between 1985-1987, he writes sincerely, gratefully to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Red Cross Central Tracing Agency, Thai National Police, U.S. Department of State, and more, to no real end, though each letter surpasses the last. First he writes them in long hand, in Vietnamese, then I think someone helps revise, translate, and type: Don’t say the boat was stopped or encircled, say the boat was surrounded by the Thai pirates; it’s true they took away with them eight girls in our boat, but abducted captures the situation better; say…— “The Reading Room will be closing in 15 minutes.” I sit and stare at the rust print left by a paperclip coiling into the dead end of a labyrinth. I’m reading the letters of Mr. Nguyen Van The concerning the disappearance of his granddaughter, Dinh Thuy Trang, when she escaped by boat… In the blue of his sentences a boat leaves Vietnam, on October 24, 1985, ventures into the South China Sea, and drifts dangerously along the coast of Thailand. I can just make out the boat, a small open “v”, drawing its wake pattern, on the sea, in the letters. Around 9 A.M. of 26 October, the boat was surrounded by 5 fishing boats belonging to the Thai fishermen. I recoil at the actions his apt verbs dramatize— invaded, searched, ransacked, pried, looked, seized: I see teeth flashing inside mouths like knives. No trace of Thuy. She’s gone…

The last time I saw Paul Castle it was printed in gold on the wall above the showers in the boys’ locker room, next to the school record for the mile. I don’t recall his time, but the year was 1968 and I can look across the infield of memory to see him on the track, legs flashing, body bending slightly beyond the pack of runners at his back. He couldn’t spare a word for me, two years younger, junior varsity, and hardly worth the waste of breath. He owned the hallways, a cool blonde at his side, and aimed his interests further down the line than we could guess. Now, reading the name again, I see us standing in the showers, naked kids beneath his larger, comprehensive force—the ones who trail obscurely, in the wake of the swift, like my shadow on this gleaming wall.

God with honour hang your head, Groom, and grace you, bride, your bed With lissome scions, sweet scions, Out of hallowed bodies bred. Each be other’s comfort kind: Déep, déeper than divined, Divine charity, dear charity, Fast you ever, fast bind. Then let the March tread our ears: I to him turn with tears Who to wedlock, his wonder wedlock, Déals tríumph and immortal years.

1. At this precise moment of history With Goody-two-shoes running for Congress We are testing supersonic engines To keep God safe in the cherry tree. When I said so in this space last Thursday I meant what I said: power struggles. 2. You would never dream of such corn. The colonials in sandalwood like running wide open and available for protection. You can throw them away without a refund. 3. Dr. Hanfstaengel who was not called Putzi except by those who did not know him is taped in the national archives. J. Edgar Hoover he ought to know And does know. But calls Dr. Hanfstaengel Putzi nevertheless Somewhere on tape in the Archives. He (Dr. H.) is not a silly man. He left in disgust About the same time Shirley Temple Sat on Roosevelt’s knee An accomplished pianist A remembered personality. He (Dr. H.) began to teach Immortal anecdotes To his mother a Queen Bee In the American colony. 4. What is your attitude toward historical subjects? —Perhaps it’s their size! 5. When I said this in space you would never believe Corn Colonel was so expatriated. —If you think you know, Take this wheel And become standard. 6. She is my only living mother This bee of the bloody arts Bandaging victims of Saturday’s dance Like a veritable sphinx In a totally new combination. 7. The Queen Mother is an enduring vignette at an early age. Now she ought to be kept in submersible decompression chambers For a while. 8. What is your attitude toward historical subjects Like Queen Colonies? —They are permanently fortified For shape retention. 9. Solid shades Seven zippered pockets Close to my old place Waiting by the road Big disk brakes Spinoff Zoom Long lights stabbing at the Two together piggyback In a stark sports roadster Regretting his previous outburst Al loads his Cadillac With lovenests. 10. She is my only living investment She examines the housing industry Counts 3.5 million postwar children Turning twenty-one And draws her own conclusion In the commercial fishing field. 11. Voice of little sexy ventriloquist mignonne: “Well I think all of us are agreed and sincerely I my- self believe that honest people on both sides have got it all on tape. Governor Reagan thinks that nuclear wampums are a last resort that ought not to be re- sorted.” (But little mignonne went right to the point with: “We have a commitment to fulfill and we better do it quick.” No dupe she!) All historians die of the same events at least twice. 13. I feel that I ought to open this case with an apology. Dr. H. certainly has a beautiful voice. He is not a silly man. He is misunderstood even by Presidents. 14. You people are criticizing the Church but what are you going to put in her place? Sometime sit down with a pencil and paper and ask yourself what you’ve got that the Church hasn’t. 15. Nothing to add But the big voice of a detective Using the wrong first names In national archives. 16. She sat in shocking pink with an industrial zipper spe- cially designed for sitting on the knees of presidents in broad daylight. She spoke the president’s mind. “We have a last resort to be resorted and we better do it quick.” He wondered at what he had just said. 17. It was all like running wideopen in a loose gown Without slippers At least someplace.