The musk-ox smells
in his long head
my boat coming. When
I feel him there,
intent, heavy,
the oars make wings
in the white night,
and brave woods are close
on either side
where trees darken.
I rowed past towns
in their black sleep
to come here. I passed
the northern grass
and cold mountains.
The musk-ox moves
As they grew older,
the land which had grown wheat
washed down the hill,
and the river
carried the land into the sea.
The priest with the horned
mask, who brought meat
from the altar,
turned into a bird
and flew among the mountains.
The people of the markets
who touched their heads to the ground,
changed into clumps of weed
among the gutters
of the bare hill.
A galley which carried wine
This moth caught in the room tonight
Squirmed up, sniper-style, between
The rusty edges of the screen;
Then, long as the room stayed light,
Lay here, content, in some cornerhole.
Now that we've settled into bed
Though, he can't sleep. Overhead,
He throws himself at the blank wall.
Each night hordes of these flutterers haunt
And climb my study windowpane;
Fired by reflection, their insane
Eyes gleam; they know what they want.
How do the petulant things survive?
Out in the fields they have a place
And proper work, furthering the race;
Why this blind fanatical drive
April is gone,
Summer is a second season,
The landscape is now;
There is no reason
For past or future thinking,
The plow lies in the shed,
And the land is dead
To all motion save the slow
Brilliant blossoming of summer.
Only later will the furrowed brow
Perceive the seasons' separations
And remember and understand
Harsh imprint of spring.
Then a scarecrow will look down
Longingly on creation
And with snowfall, fall
The bear sleeps in the cellar hole, where pine needles
heap over the granite doorstep. And the well brims
with acorns and the broken leaves of the oak tree
which has grown where the anvil rusted in the forge.
When my eyes close, I can see another summer:
a bark of rust grows on the trees of the gas pumps,
and the EAT signs gather like leaves in the shallow
cellars of diners, and a wildcat waits for deer
on the roof of a car. Blacktop buckled by frost
starts goldenrod from the highway. Fat honey bees
meander among raspberries, where a quarrel
of vines crawls into the spilled body of a plane.
I have visited men's rooms
in several bars
with the rows
of urinals like old men
and the six-sided odor
of disinfectant.
I have felt the sadness
of the small white tiles,
of the repeated shapes
and the unavoidable whiteness.
I have understood
that some afternoon
when it rains and the streets
blacken with umbrellas,
a white army
from all of the men's rooms
Hear the difference
when there is wind
against a new house
and against an old house.
In summer I rest
beneath maple leaves.
In fall I rake them
for the garden,
to grow and eat
next year
last summer's shade.
I still defend you,
still blame myself —
I should extend
such courtesy
to the living.
I lived two years
in mountain mist.
No one came to visit
the abandoned quarry.
I fished every day,
and short summer's
sun seemed brighter
than ever it did
in town.
Searching for a lost
crew-woman, we
forded three creeks
in deepening fog.
It was ourselves
we lost then.
Why, then,
was I troubled
when you talked
of happiness?
Was it because
the chrysanthemums
eavesdropped?