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I try and try not to think about the Wall. Its profile, massive height and roughcut stonework All stir up fear, gloom, exaltation, pride, And numbness, in a jumble hard to name. No one knows who had it built, or when; Five hundred years ago, the locals guess; But sunset trumpet calls depict it gold Enough to have been there more than a thousand. The thing held off  invasions, true—but not Always, our history records defeats. Nowadays we never get invaders, Or else they're us, going beyond its limits To acquire new territory and subjects. Though weaker stretches have sheared off and fallen, Herders fence up their sheepfolds at the base, And some blocks are dragged off to build new houses. Topside, binoculars can sight its ramparts Winding through dark-blue mountains farther north . . . That monumental, chill indifference Explains why boys graffiti names on it (Or jokes), no matter if their scrawny slashes In time begin to erode. Decades ago, I gouged in mine, it wasn't yet forbidden. Luckily, dense vines screen the signature, Made at an age when we assume our name Amounts to more than permanent stone structures. Oh, even now it sparks a vocal reflex When I move the leaves and read it there again.

My parents argued over wallpaper. Would stripes make the room look larger? He would measure, cut, and paste; she’d swipe the flaws out with her brush. Once it was properly hung, doubt would set in. Would the floral have been a better choice? Then it would grow until she was certain: it had to go. Divorce terrified me as a child. I didn’t know what led to it, but I had my suspicions. The stripes came down. Up went the flowers. Eventually it became my definition of marriage: bad choices, arguments whose victors time refused to tell, but everything done together and done well.

Julius Caesar’s head was cut off and fed to the barbarians waiting outside the walls of Rome. Salvador Dali wore one orange sock and a white one on days he went to eat breakfast in cafes. On days he stared at the wall, he did not wear socks. Yukio Mishima sheathed his knives in wall of whale oil, claiming such creatures were the only ones that understood the art of sacrifice. The last thing John Lennon saw before he was gunned down was the brick wall of his apartment house. Sitting Bull had fourteen wives he lined up against the cliff walls. He would close his eyes and walk blindly to them with an erection, promising he would take the first one his erection touched. Crazy Horse watched silently from the cliff walls above. J. D. Salinger scribbled on his bedroom walls as a boy, promising his mother to whitewash the figures the first time he was caught. Joan of Arc climbed over the walls and fell on top of a castle guard, the commotion bringing soldiers who swore the wall opened and she escaped by stepping through. Nikita Khrushchev stared at the wall of nuclear buttons and knew it was a green one they told him to push, but the triggers were every color except green. Hernán Cortés’ men met a wall of arrows, then turned and ran. Montezuma’s men met a wall of armor, wept, then stoned their chief off the wall for helping the conquistadores. Carl Jung opened his eyes to find himself sleeping against a wall of flowers, the beautiful smell giving him the answer he had been looking for. Charlie Chaplin ordered his crew to remove the hidden mirror from the wall, footage of his latest lover overflowing onto the studio floor. Sor Juana de la Cruz hid her new poem in a hole in the wall, but when a fellow nun went to retrieve it after Sor Juana’s death, it was gone. The Dalai Lama stopped in the snow and bowed his head to pray before the wall of dead monks killed by the Chinese. Virginia Woolf’s last memory before drowning was the wall of family portraits, the photographs of her father and brothers so radiant in the river fog. Billy the Kid simply dug a hole in the adobe wall of the jail with his bare hands and walked away. Janis Joplin was found dead of an overdose in her Los Angeles hotel, her face facing the wall. Federico García Lorca did not face any walls when he was shot under the trees. No one knows how Tu Fu encased himself in a wall of bamboo, staying inside the tube for ten years, never saying a word, his feet becoming the roots of bamboo within the first few months of his silence. Al Capone stared at the walls of his cell in Alcatraz and added the bank figures again, trying to get them right. Babe Ruth heard a thud against the wall of his hotel suite, the baseball rolling down the hallways as a signal his tryst with the team owner’s wife about to be revealed. William Shakespeare stared at the empty walls of the theatre, stood there without saying a word, and stared at the empty walls of the theatre. Geronimo extended his arms over the walls of rock, the approaching sound of the cavalry troops echoing down the canyon, the pictograph Geronimo carved high on the wall, years ago, lifting him to safety. Two days before Salvador Allende was assassinated, Pablo Neruda, dying of cancer, woke at Isla Negra to find the walls of the room where he lay were covered in hundreds of clinging starfish.

"The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright — And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done — "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun." The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead — There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: If this were only cleared away,' They said, it would be grand!' If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, That they could get it clear?' I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each.' The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head — Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young Oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat — And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more — All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.' But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!' No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed — Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed.' But not on us!' the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue. After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!' The night is fine,' the Walrus said. Do you admire the view? It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!' The Carpenter said nothing but Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf — I've had to ask you twice!' It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!' The Carpenter said nothing but The butter's spread too thick!' I weep for you,' the Walrus said: I deeply sympathize.' With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none — And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one."

Arp might have done a version in white marble, the model held aloft, in approximate awe: this tough cross-section oval of tusk, dense and cool as fossil cranium— preliminary bloodshed condonable if Inupiat hunters on King Island may follow as their fathers did the bark of a husky, echoes ricocheted from roughed-up eskers on the glacier, a resonance salt-cured and stained deep green by Arctic seas, whose tilting floor mirrors the mainland’s snowcapped amphitheater. Which of his elders set Mike Saclamana the task and taught him to decide, in scrimshaw, what was so? Netted incisions black as an etching saw a way to scratch in living infinitives known since the Miocene to have animated the Bering Strait: one humpback whale, plump, and bardic; an orca caught on the ascending arc, salt droplets flung from a flange of soot-black fin ... Farther along the bone conveyor belt a small ringed seal will never not be swimming, part-time landlubber, who may feel overshadowed by the donor walrus ahead. And by his scribal tusk, which stands in direct correspondence to the draftsman’s burin, skillful enough to score their tapeloop ostinato, no harp sonata, but, instead, the humpback whale’s yearning bassoon (still audible if you cup the keepsake to your ear and let it sound the depths).

As you came from the holy land of Walsinghame Met you not with my true love By the way as you came? How shall I know your true love That have met many one As I went to the holy land That have come, that have gone? She is neither white nor brown But as the heavens fair There is none hath a form so divine In the earth or the air. Such an one did I meet, good Sir, Such an Angelic face, Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear By her gait, by her grace. She hath left me here all alone, All alone as unknown, Who sometimes did me lead with her self, And me loved as her own. What’s the cause that she leaves you alone And a new way doth take; Who loved you once as her own And her joy did you make? I have loved her all my youth, But now old, as you see, Love likes not the falling fruit From the withered tree. Know that love is a careless child And forgets promise past, He is blind, he is deaf when he list And in faith never fast. His desire is a dureless content And a trustless joy He is won with a world of despair And is lost with a toy. Of womenkind such indeed is the love Or the word Love abused Under which many childish desires And conceits are excused. But true Love is a durable fire In the mind ever burning; Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning.

The whole world was there, plucking their linen, half-bald, mumbling, sucking on their moustache tips. Broadway was still in business and they asked no favors. All the cracked ribs of Fredericksburg, the boys who held their tongues at Chancellorsville as the bandages, mule shit, skin and shot overran the Rappahannock’s banks and poured it in our mouths that summer. He sat up half the night reading to the Army of the Potomac poems about trooping goats and crazy fathers chewing grass in the wilderness. It’s me that saved his life, dear mother, he had dysentery, bronchitis, and something else the doctors couldn

. . . life which does not give the preference to any other life, of any previous period, which therefore prefers its own existence . . . Ortega y Gasset Neither on horseback nor seated, But like himself, squarely on two feet, The poet of death and lilacs Loafs by the footpath. Even the bronze looks alive Where it is folded like cloth. And he seems friendly. “Where is the Mississippi panorama And the girl who played the piano? Where are you, Walt? The Open Road goes to the used-car lot. “Where is the nation you promised? These houses built of wood sustain Colossal snows, And the light above the street is sick to death. “As for the people—see how they neglect you! Only a poet pauses to read the inscription.” “I am here,” he answered. “It seems you have found me out. Yet did I not warn you that it was Myself I advertised? Were my words not sufficiently plain? I gave no prescriptions, And those who have taken my moods for prophecies Mistake the matter.” Then, vastly amused—“Why do you reproach me? I freely confess I am wholly disreputable. Yet I am happy, because you found me out.” A crocodile in wrinkled metal loafing . . . Then all the realtors, Pickpockets, salesmen and the actors performing Official scenarios, Turned a deaf ear, for they had contracted American dreams. But the man who keeps a store on a lonely road, And the housewife who knows she’s dumb, And the earth, are relieved. All that grave weight of America Cancelled! Like Greece and Rome. The future in ruins! The castles, the prisons, the cathedrals Unbuilding, and roses Blossoming from the stones that are not there . . . The clouds are lifting from the high Sierras, The Bay mists clearing, And the angel in the gate, the flowering plum, Dances like Italy, imagining red.

When Walter B., one evening, explained to Beatrice that he “needed time,” Beatrice pulled the last bite of fish from Walter B.’s mouth and shook it at him. She wished he had said instead that he needed a timbrel, and off they would have gone together to the spectacle where the timbrelist often played. But Walter B. did not need a timbrel. Walter B. “needed time.” So Beatrice wrapped what was left of the fish in a red wool cloth and set out to find him some. It was cold outside. If I was time, wondered Beatrice, where would I be? She watched the humans in the distance breathe into the grass. If I was time, wondered Beatrice, how would I remind myself of where I was? She held the last bite of fish up to her mouth for warmth. It began to feel heavy in her hands. She wished he had said instead that he needed a timbrel. She wished she was for Walter B. the time he needed. But she was not. She unwrapped the last bite of fish and studied it. It reminded her of a world inside of which Walter B. was mostly gone. She rubbed her arms with it. She buried her face in it. It began to grow around her like a soft, white house. It grew, and it grew, until at last Beatrice was inside. She slowly walked through its rooms. In the first room, a pile of shovels. In the second, a pitcher of milk. When she stepped inside the third, Walter B. and the timbrelist were helping each other on with their coats. “If you were time,” called out Walter B., “where would you be?” Before Beatrice could answer, Walter B. saluted her, took the timbrelist by the hand, and left her alone in the soft, white house. Beatrice sat on the floor. Much later she would drink from the pitcher of milk. She would lean against the pile of shovels. But for now all Beatrice could do was sit on the floor. She would sit on the floor of the soft, white house until she grew hungry again for Walter B.’s last bite of fish.

I am, as you know, Walter Llywarch, Born in Wales of approved parents, Well goitred, round in the bum, Sure prey of the slow virus Bred in quarries of grey rain. Born in autumn at the right time For hearing stories from the cracked lips Of old folk dreaming of summer, I piled them on to the bare hearth Of my own fancy to make a blaze To warm myself, but achieved only The smoke’s acid that brings the smart Of false tears into the eyes. Months of fog, months of drizzle; Thought wrapped in the grey cocoon Of race, of place, awaiting the sun’s Coming, but when the sun came, Touching the hills with a hot hand, Wings were spread only to fly Round and round in a cramped cage Or beat in vain at the sky’s window. School in the week, on Sunday chapel: Tales of a land fairer than this Were not so tall, for others had proved it Without the grave’s passport, they sent The fruit home for ourselves to taste. Walter Llywarch—the words were a name On a lost letter that never came For one who waited in the long queue Of life that wound through a Welsh valley. I took instead, as others had done Before, a wife from the back pews In chapel, rather to share the rain Of winter evenings, than to intrude On her pale body; and yet we lay For warmth together and laughed to hear Each new child’s cry of despair.