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[Addressed to Charles Lamb, of the India House, London] Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, To that still roaring dell, of which I told; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun; Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash, Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone. Now, my friends emerge Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again The many-steepled tract magnificent Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined And hunger'd after Nature, many a year, In the great City pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; and of such hues As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence. A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight: and though now the bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble-bee Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure; No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes 'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good, That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still, Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

we all got tickets to The Truth finally we thought finally when the curtain fell away our indrawn breaths could be heard even in the next theater even the gasp of the mime who had slipped in among us a loud whushing like reams of litter whirling upward in a gale hands shot to mouths and mouths fell open I couldn’t say within how many seconds all our minds shut some slamming others just a click like 300 parallel rows of tipped dominoes a racket of almost unison believe me we wouldn’t have resisted anything but the truth so instantly and universally yet we sat there and waited for something else which you could say we also got if you count the mime’s unpleasant remark so she wasn’t even a real mime probably part of what was clearly just a performance

1 Outside the room where you have lived a long time Are other rooms, another building, just like yours. Each night a ship sails past, wider than the building, taller than the highest church. And though the passengers would like to visit the city, No one in the city ever boards the ship. Would you? Each night this spectacle is seen by you. The street surveyed, The air inhaled. Grapes from the west, Cinnamon from the east — If I’ve employed too liberally the passive voice, Remember it’s the thoughts, The feelings that are of consequence here, Not the one who feels them. 2 Shall we walk to the market? You could walk there blind, like Gloucester, smelling your way. Shall we stop for coffee? Which café? The one that’s commandeered by women, delicate cups? Or the one where men preside, baristas in tuxedos, the coffee rich enough for rainy days? A window, the desk, a lamp, and a chair — You’ve liked the room, you like to rearrange it for winter, Put things back for spring. But you’ve been young for a long time, An embarrassingly long time. Look what you wrote! Remember how much, despite Your ridiculous behavior, you’ve been loved. 3 The city never changes, it’s never the same. Sometimes the inhabitants restore a building, patch it up, But in a generation they’re dissatisfied, they try again, Expose the old parts so you see them Plainly, ruined or not. Who schooled you? What made you scared of change? Vividly you remember a child’s body; likewise you remember a man’s. You woke up one morning, There you were, a stinking adult. What happened between? What will it be like, You’ve seen the images, to watch your body spoiling From the inside out, your lungs, your arms, The muscles in your face — Look out the window, Choose a single brick. Once, a long time ago, the city was old. 4 Clouds desire the sky, the sky the sun. The wave Desires the land on which it trembles, Repeating the same question, day after day — Am I allowed to ask for what I want? And every day the land responds, Of course you’re allowed. You’re allowed to be angry, to rail, You’re allowed to curse the God who put you here. I’ve buried many people, old people, young people. I’ve buried children while their parents wept beside the grave. But I’ve also seen miracles. Remember when they told you You might die? You didn’t, you’re alive. And every month since then, each minute, every second is a miracle. What happens next you cannot know. Is it better or worse to live longer? Really the words better and worse do not obtain.

This little piggy went to market, This little piggy stayed home, This little piggy had roast beef, This little piggy had none. This little piggy went ... Wee, wee, wee, all the way home!

As I drove into town the driver in front of me runs a stop sign. A pedestrian pulls down his cap. A man comes out of his house to sweep the steps. Ordinariness bright as raspberries. I turn on the radio. Somebody tells me the day is sunny and warm. A woman laughs and my daughter steps out of the radio. Grief spreads in my throat like strep. I had forgotten, I was happy, I maybe was humming "You Are My Lucky Star," a song I may have invented. Sometimes a red geranium, a dog, a stone will carry me away. But not for long. Some memory or another of her catches up with me and stands like an old nun behind a desk, ruler in hand.

I could fix the leaky pipe Under the sink, or wander over And bother Jerry who’s lost

to beat the froggiest of morning voices, my son gets out of bed and takes a lumpish song along—a little lyric learned in kindergarten, something about a boat. He’s found it in the bog of his throat before his feet have hit the ground, follows its wonky melody down the hall and into the loo as if it were the most natural thing for a little boy to do, and lets it loose awhile in there to a tinkling sound while I lie still in bed, alive like I’ve never been, in love again with life, afraid they’ll find me drowned here, drowned in more than my fair share of joy.

On this most perfect hill with these most perfect dogs are these most perfect people and this most perfect fog In this most perfect fog that is the middle of the sea inside the perfect middle of the things inside that swing In this most perfect rhyme that takes up what it sees, with perfect shelter from the rain as perfect as can be, In this most perfect day at the apex of the sun runs this most perfect frog song that is roiling from the mud In these most perfect habits of the waving of the trees, through this imperfect language rides a perfect brilliancy.

Even if you didn’t have green eyes (in the bathtub, blue). Even if you didn’t have a lovely singing voice, or care for Alexandrine champagne some slow Saturday evenings to sing it through, it pleases me, your lips close to my ear, or when you’re a big girl, and I’m a big girl too. Five years difference between we two. Sometimes it hardly matters. I’ve decided to worship you, Diana, goddess of the forest— or is she the one of the hunt? Who cares? You remind me of her too. Some woman caught me up, breathless, in her strong arms, said breathe, darling. Her eyes were green-blue. Vague resemblances: that’s the daily news. Meaning: I’m willingly a fool for you any hour past midnight, and almost anytime in three-quarter view. Consider this, too: stumbling back, after a fight, to someplace we could call home, you and I have been known to duet a jubilee so funky it sounds like the blues. What steady arrows you shoot, Diana, become a goddess of the hearth: you whisper time to put the porchlight on, and we do. Who am I talking to? What is this strange glare, this prescience that you won’t be true? Sometimes you say something like even so, boo, and it sounds like breathe, darling. That’s why this one’s for you.

Seed corn strung like scalps, Dil's tree with its crossed foxtrot legs. A story about habitations carved from snow. Fallen snow, not falling, Buttonwood, peavey. When Alvaro and Christina die they become two doors: one black; next, sky. They are also, perhaps, the cast-iron skillet, the string-bikini girl poised to sow beans. So sometimes the world is made still. Sometimes you're home and it's thaw. Sometimes a swashbuckler with a dry brush bivouacs to catch the salt breeze that bristles the lace. Hush. Honest men sleep with their shoes on. We love things for what they are. Texture of shingles, say. Lobster trap elegies. The way a hung coat suggests a general's death on the banks of the Monongahela, and dinner guests, toreadors. How, sixteen years before he kills himself, Allan's handlebar streamers and foxtail fly. Everything birthing its vanishing point. Even the sycamore, which is to say, even the man, is due to be shot, skinned and tanned. But seedpods are sachets or paper balloons and an oil drum serves to roast nuts. Meantime: Arabella Cleveland, her chin returning to slop, grows blue flax in clumps. Cooling sheds, phrenology. Moose racks, buckets. The smoothness of a plank box and the irregularity of hay. I think it's very cold there. I think Andrew loves his wife: her posture beneath a flat-crowned hat.