Sing a song of sang, that human root:
wrinkled homunculus growing slow as thought.
Even the seeds take twenty months to sprout,
stones that finish growing in the ground
as if traveling through the interminable gut
of some great beast that vanished in the Pleistocene.
Sing a song of burying in haste,
the berries’ flesh a tempting prize for mold.
So if picked on a morning in early September,
nestled into a plastic vial & sent by overnight mail,
you must plant them as soon as they arrive —
don’t put it off till after supper.
Choose each resting-place with care,
moving slowly through the woods & stopping often.
Pretend you’re burying a grandparent, piece by piece.
Make a hole with your index finger
with love but no touch
my hand may become a wing
in the company of the dead
I find the light ravishing
midsummer
and the rose is dead
after being married
to a stake
a creature
that having sunk
from want of spirit
died pretty
no one is awake
beyond the ordinary
violence of
a peak
but if we be eaten
we shall again live
and a cat will be a cat
circumspect and factious
the multitude I had in my head
lie dead
everybody with his flag
standing by him
alone with horses
you see in what fear
people live
mad at the dead
at Monday
even at my drink
I entered the sea
only to talk to the dead
loving
raging
a nest of papers
convenient as one’s own pale horse
not yet dead
but open to it
an ink body to carry me
away by night
the swan all alone
growing so sickly it dreams
of dead tunes
out on the water
rain is no making of a field
but a great kindness
when I die
who will offer any advice
what will be the question
insipid discourse about suffering
is dangerous
all unprepared heads must be spared
those being the best for war
it will not be safe to expose
the rich to doubt
or the poor to conviction
horrible is the death grin
they escape in fight not laughs and curses
and the things of life
such weather we get in our country being so dead is a surprise
a death made
of dirt and prison stone
made from hour to hour
till it was midnight
made drunk
made of work
like a heavy-headed ox
whole but odd