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Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all—was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire; ‘Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, ‘Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.’ Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair— A lover with disaster in his face, And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair. ‘Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? ... ‘God always hated Cain’... He bowed his head— The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.

Give us water and food to pursue our tasks. Help us not become wards of the state, impoverished, homeless, destitute, crushed under the heel, buried in systems, imprisoned, dead, hospitalized. We die die die. Our dogs will not walk themselves after we go. Our bodies will not burn themselves after we go. Our apartments will not pack themselves after we die. Instead, bright ribbons of work, tangled in our bodies, will be vomited out and indeed bright ribbons will be vomited out. In the meantime, the light’s eyelashes open and close. And in the meantime, work and reprieve. Lie down; don’t lie; lie flat; lie still. See these books bound in itching white leather? They are your life. And each feathery page, lifted by hot wind. O summer air, o gardens, o seasons ô châteaux. The glaring day, it binds, o occurrence, o soil o soul.

1 Tense and tenuous grow from the same root as does tender in its several guises: the sour grass flower; the yellow moth. 2 I would not confuse the bogus with the spurious. The bogus is a sore thumb while the spurious pours forth as fish and circuses.

The asking was askance. And the tell all told. So then, in tandem, Anathema, and anthem. The truth was on hold, Seeking too tasking. And the wool was pulled Over as cover. No eyes were kept peeled. My iris I missed The truth, now mistrust All things seen, and this Distrust, the sounded distress signal Called and called and culled from your damsel.

The comet taught us how to watch the war. The comet contended that fire is romantic and recommended we each behold it alone, envisioning out there somewhere our next lover, craning up at this same sky. Was the comet simply endeavoring to keep us divided, I asked it, and the comet did not reply. Then we discovered the men who wanted us dead were convening at night on the site where their hero had been unceremoniously interred. And so we exhumed the guy, burned him up, and fed his ash to the rapids, to be churned into marlstone and mud-rich air. Good thinking. Now he’s everywhere.

Alice cannot be in the poem, she says, because She's only a metaphor for childhood And a poem is a metaphor already So we'd only have a metaphor Inside a metaphor. Do you see? They all nod. They see. Except for the girl With her head in the rabbit hole. From this vantage, Her bum looks like the flattened backside Of  a black and white panda. She actually has one In the crook of  her arm. Of course it's stuffed and not living. Who would dare hold a real bear so near the outer ear? She's wondering what possible harm might come to her If  she fell all the way down the dark she's looking through. Would strange creatures sing songs Where odd syllables came to a sibilant end at the end. Perhaps the sounds would be a form of  light  hissing. Like when a walrus blows air Through two fractured front teeth. Perhaps it would Take the form of a snake. But if a snake, it would need a tree. Could she grow one from seed? Could one make a cat? Make it sit on a branch and fade away again The moment you told it that the rude noise it was hearing was rational thought With an axe beating on the forest door.

from Sonnets, Second Series XVIII And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes: The woods have fallen; across the meadow-lot The hunter’s trail and trap-path is forgot; And fire has drunk the swamps of evergreens! Yet for a moment let my fancy plant These autumn hills again,—the wild dove’s haunt, The wild deer’s walk. In golden umbrage shut, The Indian river runs, Quonecktacut! Here, but a lifetime back, where falls to-night Behind the curtained pane a sheltered light On buds of rose, or vase of violet Aloft upon the marble mantel set,— Here, in the forest-heart, hung blackening The wolf-bait on the bush beside the spring.

It was so simple: you came back to me And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter But that. That you had gone away from me And lived for days with him—it didn’t matter. That I had been left to care for our old dog And house alone—couldn’t have mattered less! On all this, you and I and our happy dog Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless. I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work And started in:Item: it’s years, not days. Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn’t back, In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you Left her, remember?

Last night tossed in my bed the sound of the rain turned me around, a leaf in a dried gully from side to side, the sound of the rain took me apart,        opened to                 what is it? breath caught in memory of a deep sweetness that sound unceasing delicate,                the wetness running through my body It might be nighttime in a forest hut, the rain constant in little rivulets splashing, at times uncertain— safe in each other's arms, the rain sheltering us       a depth opening bottomless to a terrible sweetness, the small rain shaking us in our bed (the terror) whispering End of a season, wind from the west new york, 1982

And Smart saw God concentric in his cat. Smart’s cat, artificing faith from cyclone volition. There is no God in you, yellow dog. Your breath is our daily quicksand; you juggle your legs into an avid heap. You are bent on death. There is no God in you. You are imperfect and critterly. I will consider you, for all of that. Today, as you joust farewell to the park; the pack in their garrison palsy, tails agog, and you, cocking your head to cup Madam’s strewn bark, your nose like an antique brooch in the sun. I will consider you, yellow dog, as you twist in a rapt mechanical dream. I will consider your coat, the color of fenced gold; how you are your own secular halo. I will consider your skull, the narrow skull of a young gazelle whose victory is leaping. And I will consider your eyes, their hazel light a gulp of fire, those firewater eyes, holding now a numb depth down, and milkier flickering monthly. I will consider your youth, when we didn’t know if you would saunter or quake; when we didn’t know if you would prove savvy or giddy or both. It was both. Our frank amaze at your hardy smarts! Our silly delight at each degree of more-than-human knowing. I will consider you, yellow dog, your pale moods and your gazing; your fidgets and your snoozes. There is no God in you, the deep-time of a dog year is enough. And lately you are wiser than all zero. Dear dog, creaking like a haunted house, I will consider you, from bucking young ’un to patient as settling porter; how you held the pack when Fat Man was small and a zoomy nuisance of wriggling. I will consider your narrow self, aslant against my chest in grief, in grieving, overwhelmed, when you were the busy broom that swept the pieces of me together. Yes, I will consider the yellow dog, his bestowing snout in the chill a.m.; his royal cheek and his dances. A yellow dog comes only once and is hisself: brilliant, final, and entire.