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Can you imagine the air filled with smoke? It was. The city was vanishing before noon or was it earlier than that? I can't say because the light came from nowhere and went nowhere. This was years ago, before you were born, before your parents met in a bus station downtown. She'd come on Friday after work all the way from Toledo, and he'd dressed in his only suit. Back then we called this a date, some times a blind date, though they'd written back and forth for weeks. What actually took place is now lost. It's become part of the mythology of a family, the stories told by children around the dinner table. No, they aren't dead, they're just treated that way, as objects turned one way and then another to catch the light, the light overflowing with smoke. Go back to the beginning, you insist. Why is the air filled with smoke? Simple. We had work. Work was something that thrived on fire, that without fire couldn't catch its breath or hang on for life. We came out into the morning air, Bernie, Stash, Williams, and I, it was late March, a new war was starting up in Asia or closer to home, one that meant to kill us, but for a moment the air held still in the gray poplars and elms undoing their branches. I understood the moon for the very first time, why it came and went, why it wasn't there that day to greet the four of us. Before the bus came a small black bird settled on the curb, fearless or hurt, and turned its beak up as though questioning the day. "A baby crow," someone said. Your father knelt down on the wet cement, his lunchbox balanced on one knee and stared quietly for a long time. "A grackle far from home," he said. One of the four of us mentioned tenderness, a word I wasn't used to, so it wasn't me. The bus must have arrived. I'm not there today. The windows were soiled. We swayed this way and that over the railroad tracks, across Woodward Avenue, heading west, just like the sun, hidden in smoke.

Over there, trees are sheltering A hunchedback hut... A slum, no more... Roof askew, walls and wainscoting Falling away... Moss hides the door. Only one shutter, hanging... But Seeping over the windowsill, Like frosted breath, proof that this hut, This slum, is living, breathing still. Corkscrew of smoke... A wisp of blue Escapes the hovel, whose soul it is... Rises to God himself, and who Receives the news and makes it his.

The scent of burning wood holds the strongest memory. Mesquite, cedar, piñon, juniper, all are distinct. Mesquite is dry desert air and mild winter. Cedar and piñon are colder places. Winter air in our hair is pulled away, and scent of smoke settles in its place. We walk around the rest of the day with the aroma resting on our shoulders. The sweet smell holds the strongest memory. We stand around the fire. The sound of the crackle of wood and spark is ephemeral. Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair, our clothing, our layers of skin. The smoke travels deep to the seat of memory. We walk away from the fire; no matter how far we walk, we carry this scent with us. New York City, France, Germany— we catch the scent of burning wood; we are brought home.

He’s brought me to hear his band. He sits in a corner mouthing his clarinet. A hellish racket begins. Outside, through flashes of lightning, wind gusts and rain whips, knocking the lights out every five minutes. In the dark, their faces give it their all, contorted, as they play a dance tune from memory. Full of energy, my poor friend anchors them all from behind. His clarinet writhes, breaks through the din, passes beyond it, releasing like a lone soul, into a dry, rough silence. The poor pieces of brass have been dented too often: the hands working the stops also work in the fields, and the obstinate brows stay fixed on the ground. Miserable worn-out blood, weakened by too many labors—you can hear it groan in their notes, as my friend struggles to lead them, his own hands hardened from swinging a hammer, from pushing a plane, from scraping a living. He’s lost all his old comrades, and he’s only thirty. Part of the postwar group that grew up on hunger. They all came to Turin, to look for a life, and discovered injustice. He learned, without smiling, how to work in a factory. He learned how to measure the hunger of others with his own fatigue— injustice was everywhere. He tried to find peace by walking, at night, down streets without ends, half-asleep, but found only thousands of streetlamps blazing down on iniquity: hoarse women and drunks, staggering puppets, far from their homes, He came, one winter, to Turin—factory lights, smoke and ash— and he learned what work is. He accepted that work was part of a man’s hard fate; if all men did that, there just might be some justice in this world. And he found new comrades. He suffered their long words, he listened and waited for them to be over. He made them his comrades. Families of them in each house, the city surrounded by them, the face of the world covered with them. And each of them felt desperate enough to conquer the world. They sound harsh tonight, despite all the time he spent coaching each player. He ignores the loud rain and the flickering lights. His face is severe, fixed on some grief, almost biting the mouthpiece. I’ve seen this expression before, one evening, just us and his brother, who’s ten years sadder than him. We were up late in the dim light, the brother studying a lathe he had built that didn’t work right, and my poor friend cursing the fate that kept him there, bound to his hammer and plane, feeding a pair of old people he never asked for. That’s when he yelled that it wasn’t fate that made the world suffer or made the daylight spark blasphemous outbursts: man is the guilty one.If we only could just leave, and be hungry and free, and say no to a life that uses our love and our piety, our families, our patches of dirt, to shackle our hands.

1 an urban image from the eighties when we hung out at Chez Madam Arthur and at the back of the room women wrapped their arms around nights of ink and dawn 2 calendar of murmurs vague caresses about the planet and its water we could have confused words but there were doors open confetti in the midst of darkness gentle ways to swoon in a corner with she who put her tongue in my mouth 3 focus on yes, on the woman’s eyelids caress not silence not word focus beyond. Hold me back

A woman with a burning flame Deep covered through the years With ashes.  Ah! she hid it deep, And smothered it with tears. Sometimes a baleful light would rise From out the dusky bed, And then the woman hushed it quick To slumber on, as dead. At last the weary war was done The tapers were alight, And with a sigh of victory She breathed a soft—good-night!

Mother and father gave birth to a snail Night and day I crawl in smelly weeds Dear prince, if you love me, unfasten my door Stop, don't poke your finger up my tail!

Wise emblem of our politic world, Sage snail, within thine own self curl’d; Instruct me softly to make haste, Whilst these my feet go slowly fast. Compendious snail! thou seem’st to me, Large Euclid’s strict epitome; And in each diagram dost fling Thee from the point unto the ring; A figure now triangular, An oval now, and now a square; And then a serpentine dost crawl, Now a straight line, now crook’d, now all. Preventing rival of the day, Th’art up and openest thy ray, And ere the morn cradles the moon Th’art broke into a beauteous noon. Then when the sun sups in the deep, Thy silver horns ere Cynthia’s peep; And thou from thine own liquid bed New Phoebus heav’st thy pleasant head. Who shall a name for thee create, Deep riddle of mysterious state? Bold Nature that gives common birth To all products of seas and earth, Of thee, as earthquakes, is afraid, Nor will thy dire deliv’ry aid. Thou thine own daughter then, and sire, That son and mother art entire, That big still with thy self dost go, And liv’st an aged embryo; That like the cubs of India, Thou from thyself a while dost play; But frighted with a dog or gun, In thine own belly thou dost run, And as thy house was thine own womb, So thine own womb concludes thy tomb. But now I must (analyz’d king) Thy economic virtues sing; Thou great stay’d husband still within, Thou, thee, that’s thine dost discipline; And when thou art to progress bent, Thou mov’st thy self and tenement, As warlike Scythians travell’d, you Remove your men and city too; Then after a sad dearth and rain, Thou scatterest thy silver train; And when the trees grow nak’d and old, Thou clothest them with cloth of gold, Which from thy bowels thou dost spin, And draw from the rich mines within. Now hast thou chang’d thee saint; and made Thy self a fane that’s cupola’d; And in thy wreathed cloister thou Walkest thine own grey friar too; Strict, and lock’d up, th’art hood all o’er, And ne’er eliminat’st thy door. On salads thou dost feed severe, And ’stead of beads thou dropp’st a tear; And when to rest, each calls the bell, Thou sleep’st within thy marble cell, Where in dark contemplation plac’d, The sweets of nature thou dost taste; Who now with time thy days resolve, And in a jelly thee dissolve, Like a shot star, which doth repair Upward, and rarify the air.

Unlike the ashes that make their home with hot coals, snails prefer moist earth.Go on: they advance while gluing themselves to it with their entire bodies. They carry it, they eat it, they shit it. They go through it, it goes through them. It’s the best kind of interpenetration, as between tones, one passive and one active. The passive bathes and nourishes the active, which overturns the other while it eats. (There is more to be said about snails. First of all their immaculate clamminess. Their sangfroid. Their stretchiness.) One can scarcely conceive of a snail outside its shell and unmoving. The moment it rests it sinks down deep into itself. In fact, its modesty obliges it to move as soon as it has shown its nakedness and 
revealed its vulnerable shape. The moment it’s exposed, it moves on. During periods of dryness they withdraw into ditches where it seems their bodies are enough to maintain their dampness. No doubt their neighbors there are toads and frogs and other ectothermic animals. But when they come out again they don’t move as quickly. You have to admire their willingness to go into the ditch, given how hard it is for them to come out again. Note also that though snails like moist soil, they have no affection for places that are too wet such as marshes or ponds. Most assuredly they prefer firm earth, as long as it’s fertile and damp. They are fond as well of moisture-rich vegetables and green leafy plants. They know how to feed on them leaving only the veins, cutting free the most tender leaves. They are hell on salads. What are these beings from the depths of the ditches? Though snails love many of their trenches’ qualities they have every intention of leaving. They are in their element but they are also wanderers. And when they emerge into the daylight onto firm ground their shells will preserve their vagabond’s hauteur. It must be a pain to have to haul that trailer around with them everywhere, but they never complain and in the end they are happy about it. How valuable, after all, to be able to go home any time, no matter where you may find yourself, eluding all intruders. It must be worth it. They are a little vain about this convenient ability: “Look at me, a vulnerable and sensitive being, who is nevertheless protected from unwanted guests, and so always in possession of happiness and peace of mind!” It’s not surprising the snail holds his head so high. “At the same time I am glued to the earth, always touching it, always progressing, though slowly, and always capable of pulling loose from the soil into myself.Après moi le déluge, I don’t care, the slightest kick may roll me anywhere. I can always get up again onto my single foot and reglue myself to the dirt where fate has planted me, and that’s my pantry: the earth, the most common of foods.” Joy to the snail! But they leave their proud slime on everything they touch. A silvery trail follows them. And maybe this points the way for the beaks of birds that love to eat them. Ay, there’s the rub: “To be or not to be, that is the question!” Such vanity! But that’s the danger they face. Alone? Yes, the snail is quite alone. He has few friends. But he needs no friends to be happy. He sticks to Nature, he enjoys his perfect nearness, he is the friend of the soil which he kisses with his whole body. And he befriends the leaves, and the heavens toward which he proudly stretches his head, with eyes sensitive enough to signify nobility, slowness, wisdom, pride, vanity, fire. No, he is nothing like the pig. He lacks those pitiful little scurrying anxious feet. That needful flight from shame. The stoic snail is tougher than that. He is more methodical, more proud, and without 
a doubt less gluttonous than any pig — pigs after all are capricious, leaving behind one bit of food to chase after something else. That 
panicky, hurried gluttony, that fear of missing out on something — that’s not for the snail. Nothing could be more beautiful than that deliberate and discreet advance. What it must cost them to glide so perfectly along the earth they honor with their presence! Each is like a ship trailing its silver wake. They proceed with a majesty that is all the more complete when you consider again the vulnerability of those highly sensitive eyeballs. Is the anger of snails perceptible? What examples can be found? As it makes no other gestures, the snail’s passion can probably only be discovered by a more profuse and rapid effusion of slime. The slime of pride. So one can see the expression of their rage is identical with that of their egotism. So they rule the world in their rich and silvery fashion. The expression of their anger, like that of their pride, shines as it dries. But it also makes the trail that reveals them to predators. What’s more, this trail is ephemeral and lasts only until the next rain. That’s how it is with everyone who speaks in an entirely subjective way, in verses and lines only, without taking care to build their phrases 
into a solid dwelling with more than two dimensions. Something more durable than themselves. But undoubtedly they don’t feel this need. They are heroes, that is to say beings whose existence alone is a work of art — not artists who merely make masterpieces. Here I touch on one of the main points of their lesson, something they have in common with all shelled beings: that shell, part of their essence, is at the same time a work of art, a monument. It lasts longer than they do. That is the example that snails offer us: saints who make masterpieces 
of their lives, works of art of their own perfection. They secrete form. Nothing outside themselves, their necessity, or their needs is their work. Nothing is out of proportion with their physical being. Nothing that is unnecessary or obligatory. And so they delineate the duties of humanity: great thoughts come from the heart. Live a better life and make better verses. Morality and rhetoric combine in the ambition and desire of the wise. How are they saints? Precisely by obedience to their nature. So: know yourself. And accept yourself for what you are. In agreement with your vices. In proportion with your measure. What is most appropriate to the human being? Words. Decency. Our humanism. Translated from the French

The thunderstorm came like a pot boiling over and the color of water was made by that, all of a sudden, a pigment more tropical than dense with the reflection of light. Everywhere the scent of at least five different kinds of plants lifted up. The desert can’t talk back but I believe it breathes instead, breathes vivid when the water wants it the water can’t wait and it breathes back. I turned and went into the house. Under the dining room table, a snake. Green with a yellow stripe bisecting its back. Motion ate each centimeter of floor and air, scared, it makes sense to say, though there exists or existed no safer time ever in which that shape wouldn’t want to move, dead August being the exception to this when heat makes molasses of all of us. Why did I want to chase it out? I did, I got a rake and kept making it make that beautiful scared shape upon the floor, so clean. Like two ice cubes rubbing each other and too cold to melt. Nothing organized that fear. Seeing the edges it found its way out.