Collecte Works (33 page)

I'll find this kind of thing

tho it does sing.

Let's take it in

I said so grandmother can see

but she could not

it changed to brown

and town

changed us, too.

TRADITION

I

The chemist creates

        the brazen

        approximation:

Life

        Thy will be done

        Sun

II

Time to garden

      before I

      die—

to meet

         my compost maker

         the caretaker

of the cemetery

Autumn Night

Lisp and wisp

of dry leaves

“Put me wise

to what a tree toad is”

Boy

whose little son

now walks

“Starless night”

brings to mind the stars

those glimmering talks

Sky

in my favor

to fly

to downtown crowds

home

and Bash

on my mind

Nothing to speak of

on the bus ride

—a cleaned-up route—

till the courthouse—

on that grey structure the noise

of a thousand raspy wires—

sparrows!

By what law do the chirp-screech

“sparrow folk” go screwy

the late daylight hours

of fall?

Swedenborg

Well he saw man created according

to the motion of the elements. He located

the soul: in the blood. Retired

at last—to a house where he paid

window-tax (for increasing the light!).

Lived simply. Gardened. Saw visions.

Nothing for supper but tea.

Now he saw the soul from his “Pray,

what is matter” leave for the touchy

—heavens!—blue rose kind of thing.

Strange—he did grow a blue rose,

you know.

I lost you to water, summer

when the young girls swim,

to the hot shore

to little peet-tweet-

                pert girls.

Now it's cold your bright knock

—Orion's with his dog after him—

at my door, boy

on a winter

                     wave ride.

I married

in the world's black night

for warmth

                     if not repose.

                     At the close—

someone.

I hid with him

from the long range guns.

                     We lay leg

                     in the cupboard, head

in closet.

A slit of light

at no bird dawn—

                   Untaught

                   I thought

he drank

too much.

I say

                   I married

                   and lived unburied.

I thought—

You see here

the influence

of inference

Moon on rippled

stream

“Except as

and unless”

Your erudition

the elegant flower

of which

my blue chicory

at scrub end

of campus ditch

illuminates