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Oh, laud the Lord, the God of hosts commend, Exalt his pow’r, advance his holiness: With all your might lift his almightiness; Your greatest praise upon his greatness spend. Make trumpet’s noise in shrillest notes ascend; Make lute and lyre his loved fame express; Him let the pipe, him let the tabret bless, Him organ’s breath, that winds or waters lend. Let ringing timbrels so his honor sound, Let sounding cymbals so his glory ring, That in their tunes such melody be found As fits the pomp of most triumphant king. Conclude: by all that air or life enfold, Let high Jehovah highly be extolled.

The hotel bar downstairs was dirty and dark and almost empty except for him whom I didn’t know I lost my balance because evil is aroused by absence Outside on the island a brick city had grown up and old A person could only nibble on its shadows Where was my beloved? The cornerstone was familiar but unrecognizable and I didn’t understand why infinity was seeping into my hair Somebody said: “He’s out of his bottle” I guess it meant Temporarily out of service and empty. But then there was Arsene beside the last remaining cabin wandering with his eyes on the camera Dynamite in his pocket and a piece of thread to trap a rabbit. Evil is a growing thing It has its own gravity and never answers to its name It is a hole into chaos. It is real Arsene held me in his arms He was drunk as usual and his nipple smelled of rum But still I loved him— loved him madly!— as if he was the one

I wept in a stable. I found money in the dirt. I reenacted a car accident in the tack room. I asked a horse van driver to let me off where the bridle path stopped. I looked at the jockey for what he was dreaming. I told him he was wrong about making things happen. He couldn’t make things happen. I couldn’t make things happen anymore. There is exactly not enough money in the world. Magical thinking got me where I am today. Animals are warriors of time. I stopped keeping things hidden. That wasn’t a horse we saw in the winner’s circle. I can’t stop horses as much as you can’t stop horses.

Late in the season the world digs in, the fat blossoms hold still for just a moment longer. Nothing looks satisfied, but there is no real reason to move on much further: this isn’t a bad place; why not pretend we wished for it? The bushes have learned to live with their haunches. The hydrangea is resigned to its pale and inconclusive utterances. Towards the end of the season it is not bad to have the body. To have experienced joy as the mere lifting of hunger is not to have known it less. The tobacco leaves don’t mind being removed to the long racks—all uses are astounding to the used. There are moments in our lives which, threaded, give us heaven— noon, for instance, or all the single victories of gravity, or the kudzu vine, most delicate of manias, which has pressed its luck this far this season. It shines a gloating green. Its edges darken with impatience, a kind of wind. Nothing again will ever be this easy, lives being snatched up like dropped stitches, the dry stalks of daylilies marking a stillness we can’t keep.

O tan-faced prairie-boy, Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift, Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among the recruits, You came, taciturn, with nothing to give – we but look’d on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.

The sky is high We shit on earth We look up the sky The earth gives birth To our future

Mother, I cannot mind my wheel; My fingers ache, my lips are dry: Oh! if you felt the pain I feel! But Oh, who ever felt as I! No longer could I doubt him true; All other men may use deceit: He always said my eyes were blue, And often swore my lips were sweet.

The letters still come for Mrs Watters, who must, at one time, have warmed this house and lived as we do. Mostly small matters — the rolled calendar that, had she stayed, might hang now where I drew the rusted nail, the catalogues, the last gas bill unpaid — and always Mrs Watters. So for me the spirit of the house is feminine, its whisper of the one who, constantly, draws letters that assume she has never gone. On which I weekly write, without conviction: 'No longer living here. Address unknown.'

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

Never mind the pins And needles I am on. Let all the other instruments Of torture have their way. While air-conditioners Freeze my coffee I watch the toaster Eating my toast. Did I press the right Buttons on all these Buttonless surfaces Daring me to press them? Did you gasp on seeing what The mailman just brought? Will the fellow I saw pedaling Across the bridge live long After losing his left leg, His penis, and his bike To fearlessness? Will his sad wife find Consolation with the Computer wizard called in Last year to deal with glitches? Did you defuse the boys’ Bomb before your house Was under water, same As everything else? Aunt Til grabbed her Silver hand mirror Before floating away. The dog yelped constantly, Tipping our canoe. Silly dog.