Alone in the garden of little hopes,
I tell the light
to be herrings
and come in good time.
Robbed of our light by the war,
too late to take
pleasure in talk,
I put on my night cloak.
We put in the ground
our business, our absence, ourselves—
nothing but light
in the evening fields.
Three years ago I was stone,
free from pain, content—
no joy or urge.
I had a great deal of light,
one room,
and I sat.
Unseasonable light:
war, arson,
a city.
I stay, I cannot stay
in my own head.
I have made more light
than the Lord
and resolve to sit
and resolve to make way
and be undone.
light is an old acquaintance
come with a pick-axe into the cellar
a mad night-gown of silk
I wear it as an experiment
in walking upright
a private game
let it fall where it will
more real than any answer
that nothing on the stage
after all my hopes
alone with
an old boot
by the water
I attend to the light
Mind poised at
the tipping point
in a fantasy of perpetual motion
like an old-fashioned toy,
wooden bird hinged
at the hips that bends
again & again into
the undiminished fuel
of its reflection.
Last week, I saw
the sun in the surface
of a bog: it bubbled.
It trilled like a toad.
The alchemists
would be pleased, mercury
now lurks nearly everywhere.
A morning to fish:
as much light as
a found church.
No other money but lead.
I am the parrot
brought from the sea:
I speak like a ruffian
to the light.
Where the news is
is the news:
the fleet in the bay,
this wayward isle of noon,
a dinner of simple light.
Sometimes the parliament,
when all question whether
to pay some rose,
is found burning.