I sit as stolidly as a column of cold ash,
longing for a bell’s clapper, or the skin
of a drum that shivers under the blows
of a pair of brushes. I have held
this shape too long, I tell myself.
The fine teeth of my thoughts
are through with falling.
Across the lawn, the French lilac
still glows green against the gray trees
as if summer could last forever –
as if a craze of twigs were some disgrace,
& not the soul’s own map –
& I feel a sigh coming toward me
from the edge of the world.
Grain by grain,
the shadows are losing their firm outlines.
where will I go to hunt
our own hour together
I fell into the night
and melted almost to water
I could not hear and this made me fear
that there was some thief of noise
times touch and trouble us
where we move
melancholy as an ox
the work done for the office
the office never off
time is a thin woods
I am sure I shall save
for one night
my old clutter of books
strata from the burial of a grove
telling me how to fall
and in which hard bed
where in the geography
of busy people’s prayers
to find ease
I shall continue saving time
that self-razor
sad for the rot of time
in an urn or a hand the sudden
little death
that lightness
for want of a now
no wind in a stone
only cold and time
dirt getting all weary work to do
like us is loose
rain makes a mad din all evening
time is our tune
what what artifice
taking the moment unobserved
the hand has wherewithal
to kill the whole body
two horses for now and yesterday
were foretold
to unthank tomorrow
and dispose of all next week
in wool
the down
in timber
time
in a will
a testament
I rule with red ink
sum with orthodox hands
dinner after dinner
at the office late
if we play we lose
too much time