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I Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower Ring on, ring on unendingly, Make all the hours a single hour, For when the dusk begins to flower, The man I love will come to me! ... But no, go slowly as you will, I should not bid you hasten so, For while I wait for love to come, Some other girl is standing dumb, Fearing her love will go. II Oh white steam over the roofs, blow high! Oh chimes in the tower ring clear and free! Oh sun awake in the covered sky, For the man I love, loves me! ... Oh drifting steam disperse and die, Oh tower stand shrouded toward the south,— Fate heard afar my happy cry, And laid her finger on my mouth. III The dusk was blue with blowing mist, The lights were spangles in a veil, And from the clamor far below Floated faint music like a wail. It voiced what I shall never speak, My heart was breaking all night long, But when the dawn was hard and gray, My tears distilled into a song. IV I said, “I have shut my heart As one shuts an open door, That Love may starve therein And trouble me no more.” But over the roofs there came The wet new wind of May, And a tune blew up from the curb Where the street-pianos play. My room was white with the sun And Love cried out to me, “I am strong, I will break your heart Unless you set me free.”

Over the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave, To a speeding wind and a bounding wave, A gallant armament: Each bark built out of a forest-tree, Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nailed all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, To bear the playful billows' game: So, each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view, But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar-pales in scented row Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, And an awning drooped the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine, That neither noontide nor star-shine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, Might pierce the regal tenement. When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad We set the sail and plied the oar; But when the night-wind blew like breath, For joy of one day's voyage more, We sang together on the wide sea, Like men at peace on a peaceful shore; Each sail was loosed to the wind so free, Each helm made sure by the twilight star, And in a sleep as calm as death, We, the voyagers from afar, Lay stretched along, each weary crew In a circle round its wondrous tent Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent, And with light and perfume, music too: So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past, And at morn we started beside the mast, And still each ship was sailing fast! Now, one morn, land appeared!—a speck Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky: "Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check The shout, restrain the eager eye!" But the heaving sea was black behind For many a night and many a day, And land, though but a rock, drew nigh; So, we broke the cedar pales away, Let the purple awning flap in the wind, And a statue bright was on every deck! We shouted, every man of us, And steered right into the harbour thus, With pomp and paean glorious. A hundred shapes of lucid stone! All day we built its shrine for each, A shrine of rock for every one, Nor paused we till in the westering sun We sat together on the beach To sing because our task was done. When lo! what shouts and merry songs! What laughter all the distance stirs! A loaded raft with happy throngs Of gentle islanders! "Our isles are just at hand," they cried, "Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping; Our temple-gates are opened wide, Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping For these majestic forms"—they cried. Oh, then we awoke with sudden start From our deep dream, and knew, too late, How bare the rock, how desolate, Which had received our precious freight: Yet we called out—"Depart! Our gifts, once given, must here abide. Our work is done; we have no heart To mar our work,"—we cried.

October 2004 1 Not much. Less. Slip of a finger, diminished interval, maybe third of three or two. Water mirrors house with high green door opening out (no steps) into pure air. 2 Air pockets three hawks. Cat got the bird got the cat. Overflown. A habit of flight. Worn cloud on the edge of edge. Wisps. Little tongues. 3 Tongues at work.Talk Today She could did for an hour or more. My first her, who gave me words. Then at the end, before, merely Oh! A moment of... of more, perhaps. Oh sweet and blessed could be. Oh my soul 4 Soul slept, called in sick. Late sun clouds the lake with clouds. Katydid down to -did -did. Nothing to be done. Little sun, quarter moon. 5 Moon covered, un- covered, covered again, cold. Cold and hot, very and both. Disturbed the Sea of Tranquility. Distributed by the Moon Shop. Distributed self in pieces. Oh my broken. 6 Broken down, or out, as in war, or into, soon: my own him. How much we carry around under our skins, many we were, girls and boys Now now And then then. 7 Then gone and then to come: all the time, except the split second, except— All the time in the world. And out of this world? Oh little heart on my wrist, where are we going? 8 Going home: packed her bags to go back ninety years burning skirt broken fork slow train the old house current counter under cross The one who gave me time is out of time. 9 Time to shut the rattling windows slamming doors And if at first you don’t and if you try again and don’t you slip a little slide Rope burns hands over the book the pages over 10 Over time she— Overtime. Timer she was Click I mean I. Would work the week long song bird in the— Burning bush ahead, red sumac jeweled by sun. 11 Sun, here come the clouds again. Between us. You could care: you’ll swallow us up on your way out. You’re almost halfway there, and here am I, way past half. 12 Half-life, half-light, half- moon, half-mast: low flag, and every evening down. Discovered a world of green in him, on the shore of newfound skin His different hand 13 Hand over hand over: change for an empty Enter the bare page Oh keep him safe in his thin shift on his metal bed 14 Bed for one, my very one, own, oh let him let him Someone’s deep inside him now, something inside him’s taken is it is he let him breathe 15 Breathe light hold in the light: him at bandaged rest, her last year in her last bed: the apple pink just under the skin: I am floating again a little less less the chord resolving. 16 Resolved, that leaves should turn and turn: color to motion to rest. Flutter of yellow, flash of red, bronze- leafed trunk fallen across the path. Ducks twitch white tails over the water, geese stretch necks ... All fall down. All rise. All different. 17 Different from us. Dry, quiet. Still. Still Freeman    Sarah    Rebekah   John locust    maple    hornbeam     oak Timothy. Bent grass under our feet, over their bones. Katheryn. Out of. Under and over. 18 Over my— my tiny planet, growing colder, little train that could but where’s the track?   On,off again, over my, un- done, nerve flinched at No. But maybe If— 19 If. Only. Then again. But out of time just now as the lace of yellow locust leaves molecules particles waves catches its breath begins to hum. 20 Hum of words under words: brief for breath, him for hum, him still in his bed for one— And clouds so thick and fast the whole sky’s turning. 21 Turning now to the newsy world the Red Sox take last four claim pennant countries taken in or out people counted no count bombing voting mission killing vision blurred our leader says God says had hatred in his heart he said rage testosterone he said our leader vote for God 22 God is not a Republican Democrat Yankee Red Sox fan of him or her— But him is whom our bed is holding, him my one is home again, oh bless him keep him safe this little time that is our life. 23 Lifetime, timeline, line- up, down time, no time to lose time, all time gone. More of them, body count a full count, bases loaded, all bets off, one by one, or war time lots, all at once. 24 Once there was a girl, a boy, end of story in one first word, once she was and nothing’s left of her except me oh my and her him too: her last days he also came all back to me but now my own him is here is not once upon but times many. 25 Many, as in instances, or all, one, as in passing, as in course of: two words for time, in Vietnamese, but one for all the times to do, for go went gone, as in, this colder day, the geese: only ducks and gulls on the little pond, its tiny island. 26 Island’s I, for all the thinking not (no man no self). Island’s home, at least for some. But here’s a little boat for back and forth with one beside, rowing through the eventide, the late evening. 27 Evening out. On the town, out of town: city wearing your black dress sequined with lights, I am coming down for an even- ing out, in bed beside. The rest: held by, holding. 28 Holding on the Red Sox won eclipsing even the full eclipsed moon a moment outside the trouble we’ve seen though the TV had to bring in the war the war that people believe is good because they want to believe it’s a winning team 29 Teeming with leaves, trees and ground all gold around gray stones: I am greeting my last neighbors, we shall all be changed, pieces of gold slipping into air. 30 Airborne, air-born, hand- sized cradle to hold a soul, no broken- bough fall. Good news today, but best in the air, this old new leaf, turning it over. 31 Over and over again and again, time after time, stone upon hallowed stone. More than bones, ghost- thin skin, I’m here, much less less. Not yet not.

Fair season and we’re tent pitching on holy grounds in central Illinois, busting through pavement with jack hammers, driving home a stake that will be pulled two months from now. One of us holds, the other presses down, grease shooting between cracks in the old hammer’s worn shell to our hands and faces—one slip and we’ve lost our toes. I’m from the warehouse, not the tent crew. I haven’t ridden around in tent haulers across the nation popping tents here and there, but for this, the state fair, the warehousers are let out to feel important. Around us a silvered city has risen, white vinyl tents at full mast and clean for the first time in a year. It’s August. It’s the summer’s dogged days when humidity doesn’t break until midnight, an hour after the fair’s closed down. We’re piled on back of a flatbed with our tools, our tiredness. We’re a monster understood best by Midwesterners, devouring parking lots and fields, our teeth stained by cigarette and chew, some of us not old enough, some too old. All of us here for the overtime.

George Sandys (1578–1644), translator of Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished, Mythologized, and Represented in Figures, and resident treasurer of the Virginia Company for its settlement at Jamestown (1621–1624). i. a long voyage , 1621 I left you where you are: A humming late summer afternoon & mottled by shade a man reading a letter Becomes the image of a man reading That I am forgetting. This page is small yet stout enough To bear me whole upon it to you All the way in London. I may expand Myself at leisure then fold it tight, A sanctuary; Like our vessel christened The George, My letter is another ark to preserve me: George. No midnight is so private as the sea’s: Timbers breathe, a loose rope snaps,& as the wind Shoves you behind then slaps your face, Seeing nothing, nothing to be seen, you feel Unhoused, evicted from time. But tonight, my love, my lamp is feathered, shy, Herald of the next ransack & assail. Behold the storm petrel! gray wick-threaded throat Burning the oil secreted, an amber musk Of uncompassed seas & the solitary hunt, Of error & sign,& That delirium—which turned Our ship’s boy to mowing fields of Atlantic salt. Like windrows he dropped the waves. Until gaffed, pulled like a sleeve Through himself, He will live, tongue-bit, torn. To return likely to a stool set on the shale Where he can mend nets skirted by braggarts Who have never traveled farther Than the smoke dribbling from their chimneys. I try never to imagine drowning. Noisy urgent inefficiencies above, waves Pummeling, sky shredding,& the body Anchored only in its just longing for air. The tighter death’s embrace, the more languorous The moment. So this boy suffered Some vast charity of sight. He was what he saw, an adam. Now he may be adamant & stain & distance; & also that small satin interruption Of terror—the instant breath’s Orphaned by self’s perishing through poetry. Like Daphne his voice is forfeit for the song, But we do not grieve for Daphne. My bird-light gutters. Its call had sounded Like dry wood giving up a nail. What is this your wound that you must follow it? For you I had no answer; consider only the reveries Of the carpet navigator in his room. Listening To collisions of wave & star outside his tower, Rock-rapt, icebound, with a mind by dread & ceremony & the dozen arts of courtesy Girded, he invented those ideal earths in latitudes Unstrung that I now trespass— After I had translated two books To the pouring of seas & clamor of sailors I began to brood long on landlessness, Coming to believe it my sovereign, my home, When on the flat horizon of weeks at noon the flaw: A color merely, private, ethereal, collecting Heft in the warp of time. Days Before we quailed at the barbed illegible pelt Of forest, I wrecked, forlorn upon its savor, Sweet damage of apples Fermenting in rain-soaked hay, Giving way to something ranker— I tasted it at dinner lying on my tongue. I am His Majesty’s servant as my god made me; I am also my damps & exaltations; I am afraid. Heaven & hell enlisted their geographers, A map has opened the soul’s five hinges,& Persian With expectance how often have I feasted On departure. London, Naples, Marriage, Damascus, now your dear person. So much flowing through me My sight has silted dark my mouth. I beg All the many tongues your wonder cabinet holds —Dolphin, mockingbird, Muscovy bear—to tell This arrival, so unforeseen, disorderly As my hope you will not forget who I was,& am, Unwildered, unwestered, constant, returning. Bless you where you are,& where you would be When you are there,& bring you thither. My love, What may never not be strange? What, This morning, will wake & make me new. ii. winter 1621 It begins like a legend told to a fretful child: It was, it was, and it was not. It begins As if with symptoms of that sweat I hear, so late (oh not Thank God too late), you were spared: A little blush along the throat. A restlessness. Then the silkworm’s casement, tapering & pale as the egg of a chimney-swift, Which we will convert to cloth To cover the naked Indian. A bobbin, Which dropped in my tisane would ravel the maelstrom Of silk. Spindle of whirlwind, spoonful Of follow. The thread’s stained scalding mile Pours out my glass tempered in our kiln, As each new settler is also seasoned In this furnace, our new-found land. (As the man drowning believes he digests The mild water, as the damned marry flame & yet blister, so do I know myself Grasped by change at the stroke of change.) Hold this glass up to your eye & through Its pebbled horizon you may spy your room, See its ire of surfaces sore with chairs. Green grass green grace... Would that I could account this world one Where nothing is lost only exchanged. Without coppice, park, romancely glade, Or commanding vantage, Woods press on us; they fester, & they watch. To the northeast white spruce, Phalanxes of fledging pinions, clamp Root to granite & hoard What they glean off salt-fog, sea-spray,& stone. From ewers of willow-oaks darkness steams. At breakfast I have pinched the plantlets Insinuated by a maple’s winged seed overnight; It unclasps twin leaves, pale hands Loosening the soil of my rest, They never empty of their solicitations. I find no empires here, no apostles or emeralds. Instead, all things a-broil with an awful begetting & my hours unsettled by some new show Of riotous & mystical imagination. Though we might wish to wedge us barnacle-tight To shore’s edge, our foundation raised On marshland recalls this irritable fact— The estuary, a nursery of strange devices, Throws off new forms so promiscuously I wonder how the world holds any more shape Than a dream? From my hand at night (my light A little oil in a dish or a rush taper smoking Not so different from his), flower Ovid’s fantastic shapes, shadows Of an old empire’s former splendor Now perjured by Virginia’s clay & leaf & sand Turned to the king’s profit as iron, silk,& glass. Belief is possible at night, solitary, firelit. Then, I can believe in Ovid’s centaurs, Or at death that he was met by a three-headed dog. I can believe in your letters, which never come. It is for you that I persist In translating fresh birdsong, like this bunting’s Comecomecome wherewherewhere All together      down the hill. (Where did they go, who went before us? Starved trove: scatter of blue beads & a name Grafted to that bald acre. Roanoke. There is my terror & my tale: to go west Under this eternity of nameless trees.) And what will you make of this Humble hieroglyphic of nature I forward to you? Nocturnal, double-wombed, variously called Monkey Fox; Frosted, Or Short-headed, or Indolent. Let this Leafy-Eared Rat-Tailed Shuffler The naturals call Possoun Join your zoo’s other fantasies & with the Little Military Learnéd Horse Enjoy its dish of ale. Its fur is durable; Its flesh wholesome, white,& pleasant. With one hand I can reach for A medicine man’s last breath caught in a vial Or a hummingbird, stuffed With arsenic & leaves & looking Like a fine jeweled dagger aimed at my heart, With the other hand I brush away The web spun in a fox skull’s whitened socket While a wild turkey glowers from its corner Like a small dyspeptic dragon. My cullings do not quite master my closet. When I imagine myself returned to the smells & noise of London, from my stiff knee Sands grinding as I walk, no marvels Except those which the mirror surprises in all of us, The swan-white wing at my temple, I do not know what to hope for: That you do not see me, or that you do, But as though I were pinned under glass. At my windowsill a quince widens A jaundiced eye into the dark where are Real nettles beneath the words & invincible red Root of the madder. As long as any image of this world Sticks in my soul, I remain— iii. spring 1622

non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare, solaque famosam culpa professa facit. Amores, III, xiv I love my work and my children. God Is distant, difficult. Things happen. Too near the ancient troughs of blood Innocence is no earthly weapon. I have learned one thing: not to look down So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere, Harmonize strangely with the divine Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.

Bastard, the other boys teased him, till Phaethon unleashed the steeds of Armageddon. He couldn’t hold their reins. Driving the sun too close to earth, the boy withered rivers, torched Eucalyptus groves, until the hills burst into flame, and the people’s blood boiled through the skin. Ethiopia, land of   burnt faces. In a boy’s rage for a name, the myth of race begins.

For 1995 It was the dead center of summer, & anyone but us would’ve been outside hours ago, flailing like a system of larks against the hydrant’s icy spray. But a girl had her orders, & to disobey our mother was, in a sense, to invite one’s own destruction, cause to pray that a god of mercy might strike first. So we lay, still as stars on the living room floor, poring over algorithms: divisors & dividends,quotient the first synonym for resolution I ever learned, & would later come to love for its sound alone, how it reminded me, even then, of words like quantum&quotation mark, both ways of saying nothing means what you think it means all the time. The observable universe hides behind its smooth obsidian dress, & all we can do is grasp at it in myths & figures, see what sticks, give all our best language to the void. What dark irony, these coy, child philosophers, theorizing how things break from the floor of a house where everything is more or less in flux, indeterminate as the color of the blood in a body. Or the speed at which I learned to obliterate the distance between myself & any given boy on the block, the optimal angle of the swing most likely to drop another kid cold in front of his crew, to square up, square off, & this too was a kind of education, the way my sister held both fists semi-adjacent, each an inch or so from her switchblade eyes, showed me the stance you take when the math doesn’t quite shake out, so it’s just you & the unknowns & the unknowns never win.

Twice through my bedroom window I’ve seen the horned owl drop from the oaks to panic the rabbit in my neighbor’s backyard. Last night he paced for an hour across the top of the cage, scrutinizing the can of water, the mound of pellets, turning his genius to the riddle of the wire, while under him the rabbit balled like a fat carnation in the wind. Both of the terriers yapped from their porch but the owl never flinched, pacing, clawing the wire, spreading wings like a gray cape, leaping, straining to lift the whole cage, and the cage rocking on its stilts, settling, and rocking again, until he settled with it, paused, and returned to a thought. And the rabbit, ignorant of mercy, curled on itself in that white drift of feathers? Wait, three years and I haven’t escaped the child I saw at Northside the night my daughter was born, a little brown sack of twigs curled under glass, eyes bulging, trembling in the monitors, and the nurses rolling the newborns out to nurse, and the shadows sweeping the nursery.

Owl small be enough The child for all his feathers was a cold. Oh wow the owl. The poem the vowels The owl, look its vowels That branch for you Owl, are you an armature vector And a large step for mankind? Owl astronaut burgeoning owl is a gift You give to me give to you Terrible other things happen. We stay on our branch. A hundred eyes Two will do