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The day was cloudy. No one could come to a decision; a light wind was blowing. ‘Not a north-easter, the sirocco,’ someone said. A few slender cypresses nailed to the slope, and, beyond, the sea grey with shining pools. The soldiers presented arms as it began to drizzle. ‘Not a north-easter, the sirocco,’ was the only decision heard. And yet we knew that by the following dawn nothing would be left to us, neither the woman drinking sleep at our side nor the memory that we were once men, nothing at all by the following dawn. ‘This wind reminds me of spring,’ said my friend as she walked beside me gazing into the distance, ‘the spring that came suddenly in the winter by the closed-in sea. So unexpected. So many years have gone. How are we going to die?’ A funeral march meandered through the thin rain. How does a man die? Strange no one’s thought about it. And for those who thought about it, it was like a recollection from old chronicles from the time of the Crusades or the battle of Salamis. Yet death is something that happens: how does a man die? Yet each of us earns his death, his own death, which belongs to no one else and this game is life. The light was fading from the clouded day, no one decided anything. The following dawn nothing would be left to us, everything surrendered, even our hands, and our women slaves at the springheads and our children in the quarries. My friend, walking beside me, was singing a disjointed song: ‘In spring, in summer, slaves . . .’ One recalled old teachers who’d left us orphans. A couple passed, talking: ‘I’m sick of the dusk, let’s go home, let’s go home and turn on the light.’ Athens, Feb. ’39

We visit by phone as the morphine haze retreats, late afternoon, most days. Our mingled past is set against the pin- hole lights of cars cruising the blacked-out streets: we four in the college smoker popping No-Doz, honors students carrying heavy course loads tipped sideways by sex, one by one discarding our virginities on the altar of inverse pride, ironing our blouses with Peter Pan collars to wear on dates with those 90-day Wonders, ensigns in training for the Second World War in the Business School across the Charles River. We called ourselves the Unholy Four. Whenever any three of us met on campus we huddled to bray Austria! Russia! Prussia! in unison. It came out sounding like Horseshit! Post graduation one year, look at us: my new husband atop your even newer one's car singing the bawdy verses of "Roll Me Over" in a drunken tenor while the scandalized uncles and aunties —it wasn't enough that you'd wed a Chinese— wrung their hands. You drove off trailing Just Married in two languages. Now BJ is gone, and Hettie. You have, they say, only days. It is my plan to go with you as far as the border. I've been that far— Did I come back from there morally improved? Somehow better equipped to support you this side of the douane and wave, your two cats curled like commas beside you as the barrier lifts and you drive on through?

Here at the wolf’s throat, at the egress of the howl, all along the avenue of deer-blink and salmon-kick where the spider lets its microphone down into the cave of the blackberry bush—earth echo, absence of the human voice—wait here with a bee on your wrist and a fly on your cheek, the tiny sun and tiny eclipse. It is time to be grateful for the breath of what you could crush without thought, a moth, a child’s love, your own life. There might never be another chance. How did you find me, the astonished mother says to her four-year-old boy who’d disappeared in the crowds at the music festival. I followed my heart, he shrugs, so matter-of-fact you might not see behind his words (o hover and feed, but not too long) the bee trails turning to ice as they’re flown.

Out of a motionless infernal shudder and clang of steel on steel as wagons moved toward the eternal, a sudden silence: I was healed. The stormcloud of my sickness fled on a breath. A flickering of eyes, and I saw my mother by my bed and gazed at her without surprise. Free! Helpless, yes, to move the hands clasped on my chest—but I had no desire to move. The rustling sounds (like cypress trees, like streams that flow across vast prairies seeking seas that don’t exist) were thin, insistent: I followed after those vain sighs, ever the same, ever more distant.

Late winter, almost spring. It's like finding a diamond; now I don't want to leave. I sit in the dirt and put my hands in your tracks. For the first time in a long time I don't doubt. Now I know I always knew you were here. You are the beginning of disclosure, the long-felt presence Suddenly incarnate. Behind me my friend warns, If we see the bear, get into a fetal position. No problem, I tell her, I'm always in a fetal position—I was born in a fetal position. Did you know, she says, the body of a shaved bear looks exactly like a human man? I skip a stone, feel a sudden bloat of grief, then laugh. I ask her, Who would shave a bear? We climb Farther up Rattlesnake Creek, watch winter sun glitter off dark water. No matter how high we go I look higher. Sometimes absence can prove presence. That's not exactly faith, I know. All day, everywhere, I feel you near at hand. There's so much to understand, and everything to prove. Up high the air is thin and hard, roars in the ears like love.

Beside a humble stone, a tree Floats in the cemetery’s air, Not planted in memoriam there, But growing wild, uncultured, free. A bird comes perching there to sing, Winter and summer, proffering Its faithful song—sad, bittersweet. That tree, that bird are you and I: You, memory; absence, me, that tide And time record. Ah, by your side To live again, undying! Aye, To live again! But ma petite, Now nothingness, cold, owns my flesh. . . Will your love keep my memory fresh?

Lean and sane in the last hour of a long fast or fiercer discipline he could touch dust into a sudden surge of limbs and speak leaves in the night air above him, inhabit quiet so wholly he heard roots inch into the unfeeling earth, rings increasing inside of that tree. Without moving, hardly breathing, he could call out of the long darkness walls around him, a house whose each room he knew, its hoard of silences, solitudes, doors opening onto the wide fields through which he moved, breathing deeply, unbewildered by the dead with their hands of wind, their faces of cloud. Stilled and gifted in the last hour before the first light, in the dark place of his own making, he could feel rocks relax alive beside him, gather from a moon-raveled river the pearl curves and blue fluency of a girl his hands once knew. He could let her go. He let it all go, desire and grief and raw need going out of him moment by moment into the mild immaculate night, love by love into a last passion of pure attention, nerves, readiness... Light carved out of the darkness a muscled trunk, each clenched limb and the difficult tips of a plain mesquite taking shape over the hard ground where they found him, his eyes wide and his whole body hungering upward, as if he could hear and bear the bird singing unseen deep in those leaves.

‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died. Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed, The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain! Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut! And the Big Gun guffawed. Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’ Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead. And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud Leisurely gestured,—Fool! And the splinters spat, and tittered. ‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood, Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud. And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned; Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned; And the Gas hissed.

I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o’er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town. But now he walks the streets, And looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, “They are gone.” The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. My grandmamma has said— Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago— That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow; But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer! And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.

A dreadful darkness closes in On my bewildered mind; O let me suffer and not sin, Be tortured yet resigned. Through all this world of whelming mist Still let me look to Thee, And give me courage to resist The Tempter till he flee. Weary I am — O give me strength And leave me not to faint; Say Thou wilt comfort me at legnth And pity my complaint. I've begged to serve Thee heart and soul, To sacrifice to Thee No niggard portion, but the whole Of my identity. I hoped amid the brave and strong My portioned task might lie, To toil amid the labouring throng With purpose pure and high. But Thou hast fixed another part, And Thou hast fixed it well; I said so with my bleeding heart When first the anguish fell. For Thou hast taken my delight, And hope of life away, And bid me watch the painful night And wait the weary day. The hope and delight were Thine; I bless Thee for their loan; I gave Thee while I deemed them mine Too little thanks, I own. Shall I with joy Thy blessings share And not endure their loss? Or hope the martyr's crown to wear And cast away the cross? These weary hours will not be lost, These days of passive misery, These nights of darkness anguish tost If I can fix my heart on Thee. Weak and weary though I lie, Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain, Still I may lift to Heaven mine eye, And strive and labour not in vain, That inward strife against the sins That ever wait on suffering; To watch and strike where first begins Each ill that would corruption bring, That secret labour to sustain With humble patience every blow, To gather fortitude from pain, And hope and holiness from woe. Thus let me serve Thee from my heart, Whatever be my written fate, Whether thus early to depart Or yet a while to wait. If Thou shouldst bring me back to life More humbled I should be; More wise, more strengthened for the strife, More apt to lean on Thee. Should Death be standing at the gate Thus should I keep my vow; But, Lord, whate'er my future fate So let me serve Thee now.