Poem

I don’t belong in this century—who does? In my time, summer came someplace in June— The cutbanks blazing with roses, the birds brazen, and the astonished Pastures frisking with young calves . . . That was in the country— I don’t mean another country, I mean in the country: And the country is lost. I don’t mean just lost to me, Nor in the way of metaphorical loss—it’s lost that way too— No; nor in no sort of special case: I mean Lost. Now, down below, in the fire and stench, the city Is building its shell: elaborate levels of emptiness Like some sea-animal building toward its extinction. And the citizens, unserious and full of virtue, Are hunting for bread, or money, or a prayer, And I behold them, and this season of man, without love. If it were not a joke, it would be proper to laugh. —Curious how that rat’s nest holds together— Distracting . . . Without it there might be, still, The gold wheel and the silver, the sun and the moon, The season’s ancient assurance under the unstable stars Our fiery companions . . . And trees, perhaps, and the sound Of the wild and living water hurrying out of the hills. Without these, I have you for my talisman: Sun, moon, the four seasons, The true voice of the mountains. Now be (The city revolving in its empty shell, The night moving in from the East) —Be thou these things.