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From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine, These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat? Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fullness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh; Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses— "Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die." Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be, While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers, resigned to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things; Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs that pursue her, Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has harried the kennel of kings.

It wasn’t until we got the Christmas tree into the house and up on the stand that our daughter discovered a small bird’s nest tucked among its needled branches. Amazing, that the nest had made it all the way from Nova Scotia on a truck mashed together with hundreds of other trees without being dislodged or crushed. And now it made the tree feel wilder, a balsam fir growing in our living room, as though at any moment a bird might flutter through the house and return to the nest. And yet, because we’d brought the tree indoors, we’d turned the nest into the first ornament. So we wound the tree with strings of lights, draped it with strands of red beads, and added the other ornaments, then dropped two small brass bells into the nest, like eggs containing music, and hung a painted goldfinch from the branch above, as if to keep them warm.

I walked out, and the nest was already there by the step.  Woven basket of a saint sent back to life as a bird who proceeded to make a mess of things.  Wind right through it, and any eggs long vanished.  But in my hand it was intricate pleasure, even the thorny reeds softened in the weave.  And the fading leaf mold, hardly itself anymore, merely a trick of light, if light can be tricked.  Deep in a life is another life.  I walked out, the nest already by the step.

The rooks are cawing  up and down the trees! Among their nests they caw. O sound I treasure, Ripe as old music is, the summer's measure, Sleep at her gossip, sylvan mysteries, With prate and clamour to give zest of these— In rune I trace the ancient law of pleasure, Of love, of all the busy-ness of leisure, With dream on dream of never-thwarted ease. O homely birds, whose cry is harbinger Of nothing sad, who know not anything Of sea-birds' loneliness, of Procne's strife, Rock round me when I die! So sweet it were To die by open doors, with you on wing Humming the deep security of life.

Poised on a bridge, streetlights on either shore, a man puts a saxophone to his lips, coins in an upturned cap, and a carousel in a piazza begins to turn: where are the gates to paradise? A woman leans over an outstretched paper cup — leather workers sew under lamps: a belt, wallet, purse — leather dyed maroon, beige, black — workers from Seoul, Lagos, Singapore — a fresco on a church wall depicts the death of a saint: a friar raises both hands in the air — on an airplane, a clot forms in a woman’s leg and starts to travel toward her heart — a string of notes riffles the water; and, as the clot lodges, at a market near lapping waves, men unload sardines in a burst of argentine light.

Into this net of leaves, green as old glass That the sun fondles, trembling like images In water, this live net, swung overhead From branch to branch, what swam? The spider’s thread Is less passive, where it appears to float Like a bright hair clinging to the wind’s coat. Hot at work, history neither schemes nor grieves Here where the soaking dead are last year’s leaves, And over them slung, meshed with sun, a net No creature wove, none frantically tried to fret. The huge weight of time without its sting Hangs in that greenly cradling woof. A wing Has caught there, held. Held. But not to stay, We know, who, how slowly, walk away.

Netflix the Green Man and any screen becomes a vineyard. Episodes cluster and climb, trellis narrative. Between the corn and lichen, creepers muster nine lives. They grow, divide, and splice, steal scenes by running fox grape, bittersweet, return on any handheld device as moonseed, woodbine, dodder, buckwheat — false buckwheat — note, though star- and heart-shaped. He trucks some mascot for our kids, glad-hands a sidekick dressed to burrow, root, and take them through their lessons rattling dad’s bouzouki nerves, mom’s percussive bones. Return, that ritual button, pressed like wine in HD, when end credits jolt. Stop time, we’re keyed up. Eternal return? Eternal jones.

We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; – They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles of years ago; And some words played between us to and fro On which lost the more by our love. The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing…. Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

God will have all, or none; serve Him, or fall Down before Baal, Bel, or Belial: Either be hot, or cold: God doth despise, Abhorre, and spew out all Neutralities.

Never love unless you can Bear with all the faults of man: Men sometimes will jealous be Though but little cause they see; And hang the head, as discontent, And speak what straight they will repent. Men that but one saint adore Make a show of love to more. Beauty must be scorned in none, Though but truly served in one: For what is courtship but disguise? True hearts may have dissembling eyes. Men, when their affairs require, Must awhile themselves retire; Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk, And not ever sit and talk. If these and such-like you can bear, Then like, and love, and never fear!