The Hard Structure of the World

Is made up of reservoirs, Birds flying South, mailmen Snow falling or rain falling, Railmen, Howard Johnson and airmen Birds of Paradise Silk lined caskets Prize poems and guitars, Beatitudes and bestiaries, Children taught contemporary manners, Time taking time away With a haymaker or a sleigh, Hope always belaboring despair. Form is a jostle, a throstle, Life a slice of sleight, Indians are looking out from the Cheekbones of Connecticut Yankees, Poltergeists deploy northward To tinderboxes in cupboards in Maine, The last chock knocked, the vessel Would not go down the Damariscotta Until the sick captain’s four-poster, Moved to the window by four oldsters Gave him a sight of her, and He gave her a beautiful sign, And there was the witch of Nobleboro Who confounded the native farmers Who, having lost the plow-bolt Right at their feet, found it Concealed in her apron: she laughed, And made the earth fecund again. The hard structure of the world, The world structure of illusion. From seeing too much of the world We do not understand it. There is something unknown in knowing. Unfaith is what keeps faith going.