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If I stand alone in the snow it is clear that I am a clock how else would eternity find its way around

It’s very strange the eggs are everywhere There must be some mistake the eggs are so close together There seems to be no room for us Push the eggs closer together It’s impossible We must get closer together but beloved what will happen with all the eggs everywhere what will happen everywhere to us There must be some mistake

1 A tree, enamel needles, owl takeoffs shake, flapping a sound and smell of underwing, like flags, the clothy weight of flags. A cone of silence stuck with diamonds, the watch she hunts, the frayed band broke. It was a black night. Dawn walked on it, the sun set its heel. She won’t find: a boundary of marsh, the island in the wood.

The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? The star of love and dreams? O no! from that blue tent above, A hero's armor gleams. And earnest thoughts within me rise, When I behold afar, Suspended in the evening skies, The shield of that red star. O star of strength! I see thee stand And smile upon my pain; Thou beckonest with thy mailèd hand, And I am strong again. Within my breast there is no light But the cold light of stars; I give the first watch of the night To the red planet Mars. The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed. And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, That readest this brief psalm, As one by one thy hopes depart, Be resolute and calm. O fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know erelong, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong.

All summer connotations fill this light, a symmetry of different scales—the site of fibrous silence, the velvet lace of iris, alders the moon can ignite. One feels the amplitude of grief, the pace of oscillating stars, power in place where time has crossed and left a breathy stain. A body needs the weight and thrust of grace. I want to parse the logic, spin and domain, the structure mourning will allow, the grain of certainty in two estates, the dance of perfect order, flowing toward its plane. That bird you see has caught a proper stance, unfaithful to its measure, a pert mischance of divination on the move, the trace of sacred darkness true to light's advance.

There are many people who come back After the doctor has smoothed the sheet Around their body And left the room to make his call. They die but they live. They are called the dead who lived through their deaths, And among my people They are considered wise and honest. They float out of their bodies And light on the ceiling like a moth, Watching the efforts of everyone around them. The voices and the images of the living Fade away. A roar sucks them under The wheels of a darkness without pain. Off in the distance There is someone Like a signalman swinging a lantern. The light grows, a white flower. It becomes very intense, like music. They see the faces of those they loved, The truly dead who speak kindly. They see their father sitting in a field. The harvest is over and his cane chair is mended. There is a towel around his neck, The odor of bay rum. Then they see their mother Standing behind him with a pair of shears. The wind is blowing. She is cutting his hair. The dead have told these stories To the living.

(FOR HANUKKAH) Light the first of eight tonight— the farthest candle to the right. Light the first and second, too, when tomorrow's day is through. Then light three, and then light four— every dusk one candle more Till all eight burn bright and high, honoring a day gone by When the Temple was restored, rescued from the Syrian lord, And an eight-day feast proclaimed— The Festival of Lights—well named To celebrate the joyous day when we regained the right to pray to our one God in our own way.

Winter is out for a lot this year the beach already is stiff all will be one will be one this year wings and ice will be one in the world all will be changed in the world: the boat will hear its steps on the ice the war will hear its war on the ice the woman will hear her hour on the ice the hour of birth in the ice of death winter is out for a lot. Out for the houses the cities out for the forests the clouds the mountains the valleys fear the heart the children peace. Winter is out for a lot this year the hand already is stiff the crying of children is heard in the house one will we be one life I hear my house slip with the world and scream all that has been screamed the heart rams its boat into ice shells rustling in the hull winter is out for as much. If I freeze fast in the ice if you freeze fast my child my great forest next summer my great fear as I come if you freeze fast my life: then I am a vulture of wings and ice tearing my liver, my living life awake in eternity. This winter is in for a lot.

It’s a beautiful world, you said, with these trees, marshes, deserts, grasses, rivers and seas and so on. And the moon is really something in its circuits of relative radiance. Include the wingèd M, voluptuous Venus, hotheaded Mars, that lucky devil J and cranky Saturn, of course, plus U and N and the wanderer P, in short the whole solar family, complete with its Milky Way, and count up all the other systems with dots and spots and in that endless emptiness what you’ve got is a commotion of you-know-what. It’s a beautiful universe, you said, just take a good look through the desert’s dark glasses for instance or on your back in seas of grass, take a good look at the deluge of that Rorschach—we’re standing out there somewhere, together.

The fat girl next door would give us a nickel to walk to the old man's store and get her an ice-cream cone, vanilla, of course, the only flavor then. On Powotan Avenue, Aunt Harriet and I would take turns licking it all the way back. It was hot that summer and we longed to go to Virginia Beach and put our toes in the tide. It rained every day and the James River swelled up to our doorsteps. Aunt Harriet and I wore tight rubber bathing caps and long saggy bathing suits. How skinny we were. She was nine and I was six. The lightning flashed and we hid in the closet; the thunder crashed. We had straight, bobbed hair and bangs. Once a dirigible moved above the tops of the trees, with little ladders dangling down, and we waved.