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All these years behind windows With blind crosses sweeping the tables And myself tracking over empty ground Animals I never saw I with no voice Remembering names to invent for them Will any come back will one Saying yes Saying look carefully yes We will meet again

At night, alone, the animals came and shone. The darkness whirled but silent shone the animals: The lion the man the calf the eagle saying Sanctus which was and is and is to come. The sleeper watched the people at the waterless wilderness’ edge; The wilderness was made of granite, of thorn, of death, It was the goat which lightened the people praying. The goat went out with sin on its sunken head. On the sleeper’s midnight and the smaller after hours From above below elsewhere there shone the animals Through the circular dark; the cock appeared in light Crying three times, for tears for tears for tears. High in the frozen tree the sparrow sat. At three o’clock The luminous thunder of its fall fractured the earth. The somber serpent looped its coils to write In scales the slow snake-music of the red ripe globe. To the sleeper, alone, the animals came and shone, The darkness whirled but silent shone the animals. Just before dawn the dove flew out of the dark Flying with green in her beak; the dove also had come.

New life! Will he toe out like Dolly, like John? Will her eyes be fires? Blue and green, like Papa's, the ocean at the shore? Will she sing in the bath? Play piano in her diapers? Will her heart leap at large machinery? Will he say, "Dribe dribe," to his daddy, entering the tunnel? Will his hair be red? Will her hair curl? Will her little face have the circumflex eyebrows of her mother? The pointed chin? Her hair be fair, bright blonde? Will she frown at the light by the river? Oh, let her head fill with Greek Owls, her mouth with honey wine. Let his hands cup the keys, the air of the studio filling with sound, the crunch of cornflakes, the sift of raw sugar on the tongue, the great chords. And let the parents be fierce forever, Lord, as You are, exacting price and penalty for Your gifts, so they grow strong and joyous, blessed by the memory of the black car, open to air, chosen by a child in token of the power they give over, their lives in service to new life, the great melt of petals under snow, the green rising.

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love— I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Deer do not tremble, I know this. My bone and sinew twisted into fallow slenderness and the tibia twig thin. Four rods finished with a cloven hoof planted on rotting leaf mould: gloomy weight of the gold altar. The poet's words are wind-blown apples. Plucked lute strings vibrate to silence as I watch Caesar with my velvet eyes, long ears poised to absorb the rush of animal clamour that is hushed in the shells of human skulls. Despite the blood threat of power my doe body would not spring away — no flick of spotted fur into shadow.

Even now, after twice her lifetime of grief and anger in the very place, whoever comes to climb these narrow stairs, discovers how the bookcase slides aside, then walks through shadow into sunlit room, can never help but break her secrecy again. Just listening is a kind of guilt: the Westerkirk repeats itself outside, as if all time worked round towards her fear, and made each stroke die down on guarded streets. Imagine it— four years of whispering, and loneliness, and plotting, day by day, the Allied line in Europe with a yellow chalk. What hope she had for ordinary love and interest survives her here, displayed above the bed as pictures of her family; some actors; fashions chosen by Princess Elizabeth. And those who stoop to see them find not only patience missing its reward, but one enduring wish for chances like my own: to leave as simply as I do, and walk at ease up dusty tree-lined avenues, or watch a silent barge come clear of bridges settling their reflections in the blue canal.

Miep managed to snap them up for 27.50 guilders. Burgundy-colored 
suede and leather  ... — Anne Frank, Tuesday, August 10, 1943 When Miep took us home with her She held us up in the air, Eye-level with those eyes You may know, eyes spelling Sorrow-girl, wait-for-me, Happiness-around-a-corner- One-day, hurry-back, don’t-tell. Two new hands took us in, Skin cradling skin. How empty we had been, Only a little bit worn — Not a penny, not a pebble Dwelling within. We became an altar, An offering red as wine, A wishing well. She was made to carry us Near and far, We were made to bear The pressure of her feet In darkness, in light, Their sweetness, their heat. We were getting used to her. Miep calls us a handsome pair.

Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation. Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!

Nothing remained: Nothing, the wanton name That nightly I rehearsed till led away To a dark sleep, or sleep that held one dream. In this a huge contagious absence lay, More space than space, over the cloud and slime, Defined but by the encroachments of its sway. Stripped to indifference at the turns of time, Whose end I knew, I woke without desire, And welcomed zero as a paradigm. But now it breaks—images burst with fire Into the quiet sphere where I have bided, Showing the landscape holding yet entire: The power that I envisaged, that presided Ultimate in its abstract devastations, Is merely change, the atoms it divided Complete, in ignorance, new combinations. Only an infinite finitude I see In those peculiar lovely variations. It is despair that nothing cannot be Flares in the mind and leaves a smoky mark Of dread. Look upward. Neither firm nor free, Purposeless matter hovers in the dark.

for Don and Henrie Gordon Forty-odd years ago— Headlines in the snow— The jobless scrawled a text for mutineers; Then history seemed sane, Though Franco sailed for Spain And Hitler swore to live a thousand years. Now Progress, his machine, Makes water out of wine; With loaves and paper stuffs the multitude; For power he milks the sun To see the cities flame And drives the Goddess from the sacred wood. Yet anniversaries Should have our praise, as trees Salute the queenly coming of the Spring. All sacred marriages Keep evergreen in this: Coupling with Time, they bind him in a ring. Though time turns, history moves As if to prove our loves, Having no pattern but the one we give. While countries bleed and burn Not any shall sleep warm Unless, good friends, you teach us how to live. Some nine and forty years, A pulse-beat of the stars, Astounds the May Fly’s million generations. Your middle style of Time Is suited most to man. This whispering wrist sustains the dream of nations.