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I passed through nature into the next. Children running in unsupervised shadows. Last century’s fountains learning not to lie. Risk to identify with only one element since one will die but in the summer air around each thought, something is built and avoided. You go through an arch and aren’t the arch, just infinity of form, curve’s curve of becoming, a phrase tracking it to future’s celadon relief. As others dressed as others we were supposed to meet. Citizens walked here without disappointment, seeing no statue or palace with eleven axes, patient in the mindless heat—

My eyes turned to salt in looking back, my thoughts stood still in gestures, in the silence of what’s been done; I gathered the crumbs of another lunch and shook them into the garden’s vitreous air where the sun’s just cracked and spilled. Here, even a flutter of blackbird beyond the hedge stands still, as my words stand still, like ships in bottles. Your language is mine but mine is not yours. At home, I could feel myself thinking while the television glowed in shadow and a film score spread like smoke in a saloon. I keep to myself what it means to tend a fire, the thick scent of soaked wood, a match between my fingers, the way a day resides in what’s to do, in another light split by the clouds, a different sunset tied to the tallest trees flush in the eyes of houses, on the poor man’s livestock; a touch here, a touch there — the way loneliness comes, today, a day like this, one day more alone. Translated from the Italian

In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929 Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts outside to the yard and question the sky, longing to have the fight settled, thinking I can't go on like this, and finally I say all right, it is improbable, all right, there is no God. And then as if I'm focusing a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up. It's the attention, maybe, to what isn't there that makes the emptiness flare like a forest fire until I have to spend the afternoon dragging the hose to put the smoldering thing out. Even on an ordinary day when a friend calls, tells me they've found melanoma, complains that the hospital is cold, I say God. God, I say as my heart turns inside out. Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck, wipe its face, set it down on the lawn, and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire again, which—though they say it doesn't exist—can send you straight to the burn unit. Oh, we have only so many words to think with. Say God's not fire, say anything, say God's a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone, but there it is. It rings. You don't know who it could be. You don't want to talk, so you pull out the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbery metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up and a voice you love whispers hello.

I believe you can build a boat. I believe you can get to water. I do not believe you can get the boat on water. How do other people bear what you are still afraid of? The answer is that when big things happen you do go through the looking glass, but it is still you who goes through, the inner text is all still right to left, so you just keep reading. Because there is no boat and there is no water. I stare at my tiny baby's face but he so wriggles he can't quite be seen. He grows steadier, more the blur is gone; joins us in the myth of the stable. Of the quakiness of infancy and old age we shimmer and shimmy into being and out again. In the mean- time, we're horses in the stable of the myth. A quick check of the ocean, or any fire, is a reminder of how things seem; I can't seem to see them. You’re on the beach and you find out the secretary of defense thinks calico cats are agents of the devil. Your friend asks if they get 10 percent. She was funny, your friend. The water in this metaphor is unreal because of the way time passes, so you can't quite get the boat on water, but you can build the boat, and a boat is good for a lot of things not just on water. Will we, without the boat on water, always feel that we are missing something basic to the picture? No. That is what I'm trying to say. It is important to let sense quiver; even in this stable of the myth of stable, even living aboard a boat mired in mud in view of the sea. Who wants yet another world? It's enough already.

for Rick Hill and in memory of Buster Mitchell I Steel arches up past the customs sheds, the bridge to a place named Canada, thrust into Mohawk land. A dull rainbow arcing over the new school, designed to fan out like the tail of the drumming Partridge— dark feathers of the old way's pride mixed in with blessed Kateri's pale dreams of sacred water. II When that first span fell in 1907 cantilevered shapes collapsed, gave like an old man's arthritic back. The tide was out, the injured lay trapped like game in a deadfall all through that day until the evening. Then, as tide came in, the priest crawled through the wreckage, giving last rites to the drowning. III Loading on, the cable lifts. Girders swing and sing in sun. Tacked to the sky, reflecting wind, long knife-blade mirrors they fall like jackstraws when they hit the top of the big boom's run. The cable looped, the buzzer man pushes a button red as sunset. The mosquito whine of the motor whirrs bare bones up to the men who stand an edge defined on either side by a long way down. IV Those who hold papers claim to have ownership of buildings and land. They do not see the hands which placed each rivet. They do not hear the feet walking each hidden beam. They do not hear the whisper of strong clan names. They do not see the faces of men who remain unseen as those girders which strengthen and shape.

(excerpt) O knights, O squires, O gentle bloods yborn, You were not born all only for yourselves: Your country claims some part of all your pains. There should you live, and therein should you toil To hold up right and banish cruel wrong, To help the poor, to bridle back the rich, To punish vice, and virtue to advance, To see God serv’d and Belzebub suppres’d. You should not trust lieutenants in your room, And let them sway the sceptre of your charge, Whiles you, meanwhile, know scarcely what is done, Nor yet can yield accompt if you were call’d. The stately lord, which wonted was to keep A court at home, is now come up to court, And leaves the country for a common prey To pilling, polling, bribing, and deceit (All which his presence might have pacified, Or else have made offenders smell the smoke). And now the youth which might have served him In comely wise, with country clothes yclad, And yet thereby been able to prefer Unto the prince, and there to seek advance, Is fain to sell his lands for courtly clouts, Or else sits still, and liveth like a lout (Yet of these two the last fault is the less). And so those imps which might in time have sprung Aloft, good lord, and serv’d to shield the state, Are either nipp’d with such untimely frosts, Or else grow crook’d, because they be not proynd. ... EPILOGUS Alas, my lord, my haste was all too hot, I shut my glass before you gaz’d your fill, And, at a glimpse, my silly self have spied A stranger troop than any yet were seen. Behold, my lord, what monsters muster here, With angel’s face, and harmful hellish hearts, With smiling looks, and deep deceitful thoughts, With tender skins, and stony cruel minds, With stealing steps, yet forward feet to fraud. Behold, behold, they never stand content, With God, with kind, with any help of art, But curl their locks with bodkins and with braids, But dye their hair with sundry subtle sleights, But paint and slick till fairest face be foul, But bumbast, bolster, frizzle, and perfume. They mar with musk the balm which nature made And dig for death in delicatest dishes. The younger sort come piping on apace, In whistles made of fine enticing wood, Till they have caught the birds for whom they birded. The elder sort go stately stalking on, And on their backs they bear both land and fee, Castles and towers, revenues and receipts, Lordships and manors, fines, yea, farms and all. What should these be? Speak you, my lovely lord. They be not men: for why? they have no beards. They be no boys, which wear such side long gowns. They be no gods, for all their gallant gloss. They be no devils, I trow, which seem so saintish. What be they? women? masking in men’s weeds? With Dutchkin doublets, and with jerkins jagg’d? With Spanish spangs, and ruffs fet out of France, With high-copp’d hats, and feathers flaunt-a-flaunt? They be so sure, even wo to men indeed. Nay then, my lord, let shut the glass apace, High time it were for my poor muse to wink, Since all the hands, all paper, pen, and ink, Which ever yet this wretched world possess’d Cannot describe this sex in colours due! No, no, my lord, we gazed have enough; And I too much, God pardon me therefore. Better look off, than look an ace too far; And better mum, than meddle overmuch. But if my glass do like my lovely lord, We will espy, some sunny summer’s day, To look again, and see some seemly sights. Meanwhile, my Muse right humbly doth beseech, That my good lord accept this vent’rous verse, Until my brains may better stuff devise.

Stefan Zweig, come back, come back. Do not be afraid. Do not look the other way, but on all sides. Come take the road with me into those dark woods where eerie sounds of nature coalesce, where fledglings kiss you on the head and talk to you. Come fly with me, come be my friend in those darkest hours, in those darkest woods where even dreams are not permitted, but they move in nonetheless, because their darkest hours share with yours and mine to light the light, where our angels lead us on with whisperings . . . and they look on. Stefan, it’s safe now. Come hold my hand. We circle home. The light is in the window. The dance is picking up. The dance is done. Can’t you feel it now? Can’t you . . . can’t you . . . ?

This day, whate'er the Fates decree, Shall still be kept with joy by me: This day then let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old; Nor think on our approaching ills, And talk of spectacles and pills. To-morrow will be time enough To hear such mortifying stuff. Yet, since from reason may be brought A better and more pleasing thought, Which can, in spite of all decays, Support a few remaining days: From not the gravest of divines Accept for once some serious lines. Although we now can form no more Long schemes of life, as heretofore; Yet you, while time is running fast, Can look with joy on what is past. Were future happiness and pain A mere contrivance of the brain, As atheists argue, to entice And fit their proselytes for vice; (The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes;) Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard That virtue, styl'd its own reward, And by all sages understood To be the chief of human good, Should, acting, die, nor leave behind Some lasting pleasure in the mind; Which by remembrance will assuage Grief, sickness, poverty, and age; And strongly shoot a radiant dart To shine through life's declining part. Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well spent? Your skilful hand employ'd to save Despairing wretches from the grave; And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragg'd from death before? So Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates. Your gen'rous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage which can make you just To merit humbled in the dust; The detestation you express For vice in all its glitt'ring dress; That patience under torturing pain, Where stubborn stoics would complain: Must these like empty shadows pass, Or forms reflected from a glass? Or mere chimæras in the mind, That fly, and leave no marks behind? Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago? And, had it not been still supplied, It must a thousand times have died. Then who with reason can maintain That no effects of food remain? And is not virtue in mankind The nutriment that feeds the mind; Upheld by each good action past, And still continued by the last? Then, who with reason can pretend That all effects of virtue end? Believe me, Stella, when you show That true contempt for things below, Nor prize your life for other ends, Than merely to oblige your friends; Your former actions claim their part, And join to fortify your heart. For Virtue, in her daily race, Like Janus, bears a double face; Looks back with joy where she has gone And therefore goes with courage on: She at your sickly couch will wait, And guide you to a better state. O then, whatever Heav'n intends, Take pity on your pitying friends! Nor let your ills affect your mind, To fancy they can be unkind. Me, surely me, you ought to spare, Who gladly would your suff'rings share; Or give my scrap of life to you, And think it far beneath your due; You, to whose care so oft I owe That I'm alive to tell you so.

It’s not enough to cover the rock with leaves — as if  vernal fluidities could be enough for the stern assault of  fact. As if  a living ornament, light and subject to temporal  breezes, could be enough to overcome despair, that chunk of  something solid in the air, unmoving, as words repeated are. It’s not enough to cover despair with motion. Motion itself  is flawed, continuous motion a narrow, thin escape from what is rooted. Leaves do sway, but in truth, they’re only flapping out, ancillary, uncertain, buffeted this way and that. They remain the fact they are bound to, involuntary notions victim to the weather of  a day, gripped by what has thrust between the rocks, flexible as everything not rock is, reckless as imagining is reckless.

for Gra'ma There was always fabric in your lap and a whistle in your heart. A sweet sap to be sucked waited in the garden. Nymphs of newts nestled under rock, your role as She Who Brings the Waters intact. Between the trilling of the crickets educating into the night and the sad sack of cans in the mornings something grew, flourished in the dark — vines as sturdy as telephone wire writhed in the breezes. You patched together a blanket of us, sewed together the mismatched and lopped off edges. And anger grew a twin, ripped through the bermuda grass, something stubborn and determined: Me, in a leather patchwork skirt, the bitter lemon song returning to its beginning over and over on the Howdie Doody phonograph, a handful of bandages, a faceful of ghosts delivered from the mirrors. How did you stand it? All of it. Us crunching through your set life, kids scuffling through the mounds of leave. Always making do. Your sunshine eyes, those stenciled memories where we still live.