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For Chris Okigbo, the well-known poet, killed in 1967 in the Nigerian civil war. That night he came home, he came unto me at the cold hour of the night Smelling of corn wine in the dawn dew. He stretched his hand and covered my forehead. There was a moon beam sparking rays in particles. The drummer boys had got themselves a goat. The din was high in the wail of the harvest moon. The flood was up gurgling through the fields Birth waters swimming in floods of new blood. He whispered my name in far echo Sky-wailing into a million sounds across my shores. His voice still bore the sadness of the wanderer To wail and die in a soft lonely echo That echo I heard long ago In the fall of night over my river, In the distant rustle of reeds At growth in the strength of my river. Once upon an evening I heard it Strung clear as the gong of the drummer boys Bright burnished like the glint edge of the paschal knife, ready anxious to cut My cords and enter into my fields. I was still a dream then Carried by the flimsy whiffs Of sweet scents borne aloft on the vision Of my coming flood That will bear me slowly and gently Into his world of smiles and smells. He was not very gentle with me But I did not complain. The thrust was hard and angry, severing the tiny cord Shattering the closed gates of raffia Gathering at its eye the reeds to feed my fishes. My flood had not risen. The canoe carried on the strength Of his man rowed steep down my river into a tumultuous eternity Of green hills and mountains That reeled and rolled to the river shore To clasp and bear me away. Then the floodgates opened for justice to cleanse to purify My evening of awakening In the turbulence of his triumph Into the bright evening of my rebirth. The birth was tedious The pangs were bitter Into the bright evening I rushed Crying I have found him I have found him. He stood there rustling in the wind The desire to go was written large upon his forehead. I was not ready for his coming I was not ready for his loneliness, for his sad solitude against the rustling wind. I was not ready for his entrance Into my fields and shores of my river. The entrance of raffia was closed closed against his lonely solitude. He stood beneath my entrance In his approach I knew the steps he took Like the departing Lazarus Marching toward his grave. I was not ready. The flood was gurgling at his estuary swimming within me birth waters warmed by his coming. He was silent mute against the rushing of the wind to cry and die for his homeland. My flood had not risen then. Across my vastness he marched into the wind his arms folded upon his chest, his eyes searching for the gates that will open his amulets to snatch and wear his talisman of hope. He marched into the wind howling through door posts to catch the boatman at the dawn point. to ferry him across my river. But I was not ready. My hands stretched to cover his in the darkness, to cover his eyes in the agony of his solitude to call him names I knew to put the dressing from my womb upon his cudgel scars, to hold his hand in the clasp of nightfall. He was mute; the wind had stopped rustling He was erect like the totem pole of his household He burned and blazed for an ending Then I was ready. As he pierced my agony with his cry, my river burst into flood. My shores reeled and rolled to the world's end, where they say at the world's end the graves are green.

“The lamps are burning in the synagogue, in the houses of study, in dark alleys. . .” This should be the place. This is the way the guide-book describes it. Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where Eli lives, Eli the katzev— slaughterer of cattle and poultry? One of my ancestors. Reb Haskel? Reb Shimin? My grandfathers. This is the discipline that withstood the siege of every Jew; these are the prayer-shawls that have proved stronger than armor. Let us begin then humbly. Not by asking: Who is This you pray to? Name Him; define Him. For the answer is: we do not name Him. Once out of a savage fear, perhaps; now out of knowledge—of our ignorance. Begin then humbly. Not by asking: shall I live forever? Hear again the dear dead greeting me gladly as they used to when we were all among the living? For the answer is: if you think we differ from all His other creatures, say only if you like with the Pharisees, our teachers, those who do not believe in an eternal life will not have it. In the morning I arise and match again my plans against my cash. I wonder now if the long morning-prayers were an utter waste of an hour weighing, as they do, hopes and anguish, and sending the believer out into the street with the sweet taste of the prayers on his lips. How good to stop and look out upon eternity a while; and daily in the morning, afternoon, and evening be at ease in Zion.

this mangy plot where by now only mothers still come, only mothers guard the nameless plots • and then sparingly • Peepholes burnt through the metal doors of their solitary cells, • just large enough for three fingers to curl out for a lemon to pass through for an ear to be held against for one eye then the other to regard the hallway to regard the cell and inmate • peepholes without a lens so when the guard comes to inspect me, I inspect him. Touch me, he said. • And through that opening I did.

From breakfast on through all the day At home among my friends I stay, But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of Nod. All by myself I have to go, With none to tell me what to do — All alone beside the streams And up the mountain-sides of dreams. The strangest things are there for me, Both things to eat and things to see, And many frightening sights abroad Till morning in the land of Nod. Try as I like to find the way, I never can get back by day, Nor can remember plain and clear The curious music that I hear.

Growing up, I barely knew the Bible, but read and reread the part when Cain drifted east or was drawn that way, into a place of desolation, the land of Nod, there to begin, with a wife of unknown origin, another race of men, under the mark of God. As a boy, I thought Nod would be a place where the blue scillas would bloom gray, a country of the rack and screw, the serrated sword, where the very serving cups were bone. As a grown man, I’ve heard that Nod never was a nation—of Cain’s offspring, or anyone— but a mistranslation of “wander,” so Cain could go wherever, and be in Nod. Far more than in God, I believe in Cain, who destroyed his own brother, and therefore in any city could have his wish, and be alone.

A day all blue and white, and we Came out of woods to sand And snow-capped waves. The sea Rose with us as we walked, the land Built dunes, a lighthouse, and a sky of gulls. Here where I built my life ten years ago, The day breaks gray and cold; And brown surf, muddying the shore, Deposits fish-heads, sewage, rusted tin. Children and men break bottles on the stones. Beyond the lighthouse, black against the sky, Two gulls are circling where the woods begin.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,— One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and to arm." Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street, Wanders and watches with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers, Marching down to their boats on the shore. Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade, — By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all. Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, "All is well!" A moment only he feels the spell Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay, — A line of black that bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's side, Now gazed at the landscape far and near, Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. It was twelve by the village clock, When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river fog, That rises after the sun goes down. It was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon. It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball. You know the rest. In the books you have read, How the British Regulars fired and fled, — How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load. So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm, — A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Boughs berserk Spin one hill Into space Standing still Olive trees race On the field below Moulded white oxen Ponder each furrow A man behind them Cries Via, Via

When you move away, you see how much depends on the pace of the days—how much depended on the haze we waded through each summer, visible heat, wavy and discursive as the lazy track of the snake in the dusty road; and on the habit in town of porches thatched in vines, and in the country long dense promenades, the way we sacrificed the yards to shade. It was partly the heat that made my father plant so many trees—two maples marking the site for the house, two elms on either side when it was done; mimosa by the fence, and as it failed, fast-growing chestnuts, loblolly pines; and dogwood, redbud, ornamental crab. On the farm, everything else he grew something could eat, but this would be a permanent mark of his industry, a glade established in the open field. Or so it seemed. Looking back at the empty house from across the hill, I see how well the house is camouflaged, see how that porous fence of saplings, their later scrim of foliage, thickened around it, and still he chinked and mortared, planting more. Last summer, although he’d lost all tolerance for heat, he backed the truck in at the family grave and stood in the truckbed all afternoon, pruning the landmark oak, repairing recent damage by a wind; then he came home and hung a swing in one of the horse-chestnuts for my visit. The heat was a hand at his throat, a fist to his weak heart. But it made a triumph of the cooler air inside, in the bedroom, in the maple bedstead where he slept, in the brick house nearly swamped by leaves.

Because Yosemite’s high altitude lake’s tadpoles wash up in glow-in-the-dark condoms and every fish lip has a hook in it. Because there’s bird shit in the clouds. Things catch, get caught. Things are consumed. There’s no looking back. And so you were conceived here, Ezekiel, fifty feet off the Trail of Broken Ankles. We wanted to make sure no one would see. The one hiker who saw looked away. Amino acids of the flushed cheek. Dirge for eyeless things. I washed my body in the river and the river went numb— the mind sunburned. I imagine the second before you took, before the cells began to split, before that flint was struck, before the dna began to twist, that a colorless emptiness suddenly inverted and told the world that he, too, once had a mother. But there is no nest of leaves. Nothing stops. The clock in the glacier still ticks above us and on our skin there were enormous ants, the segments of their bodies like black droplets of paint pushed very close against each other but still not touching, yet taking their work with them— taking away their dirt world.