Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; But, when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, was a pity.
Rats! They fought the dogs, and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles, And eat the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
What does it matter if the words I choose, in the order I choose them in, Go out into a silence I know Nothing about, there to be let In and entertained and charmed Out of their master’s orders? And yet I would like to see where they go
It unfolds and ripples like a banner, downward. All the stories come folding out. The smells and flowers begin to come back, as the tapestry is brightly colored and brocaded. Rabbits and violets.
Who asked you to come over? She got her foot in the door and would not remove it, elbowing and talking swiftly. Gas leak? that sounds like a very existential position; perhaps you had better check with the landlord.
By the last few times we saw her it was clear That things were different. When you tried to help her Get out of the car or get from the car to the door Or across the apartment house hall to the elevator There was a new sense of heaviness Or of inertia in the body. It wasn’t That she was less willing to be helped to walk But that the walking itself had become less willing.
As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, cloudless, calm, serene. About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention—a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, & continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day . . . There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our down in hot summer days, and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen . . . In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds; but we were still at a loss for a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted from his company in a summer walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected . . . We procured a cuckoo, and cutting open the breastbone and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pincushion, with food, which upon nice examination, we found to consist of various insects, such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last of which, as they were just emerging out of the aurelia state, we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing. Among this farrago also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit . . .
The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass Pressed into it as you might at the beach rise up and brush away The sand. The day is cool and says, “I’m just staying overnight.” The world is filled with music, and in between the music, silence And varying the silence all sorts of sounds, natural and man made: There goes a plane, some cars, geese that honk and, not here, but Not so far away, a scream so rending that to hear it is to be
Always just one demon in the attic. Always just one death in the village. And the dogs howling in that direction. And from the other end the new-born child arrives, the only one to fill the empty space in that wide air.
Likewise also cells infected by a virus send out a signal all around them and defences are mobilised so that no other virus
Midmorning like a deserted room, apparition Of armoire and table weights, Oblongs of flat light, the rosy eyelids of lovers Raised in their ghostly insurrection, Decay in the compassed corners beating its black wings, Late June and the lilac just ajar.
Where the deer trail sinks down through the shadows of blue spruce,
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