A Poplar

I
One among friends who stood above your grave
I cast a clod of earth from those heaped there
Down on the great brass-handled coffin lid.
It rattled on the oak like a door knocker
And at that sound I saw your face beneath
Wedged in an oblong shadow under ground.
Flesh creased, eyes shut, jaw jutting

Have you said your sermon this morning? the road it travels is dustyand wide and goes round and round and round the mountain to say itis obvious is to say it is crowded with refugees you and the others onthe road no destination in sight you are alive though boring at timesand the smell of you is instant nausea you breathe white breath in theearly morning air indeed you may have a flair for going round andround with a skip and a jump at the most unexpected moments wasn’tthat you on a music box dancing in perfect porcelain? a quake threwyou from your shelf but round the mountain you must go suppose foronce you went up the mountain? would that be a different directionor just more tiring? would it disturb the order of the ten thousand often thousand things? do you care? do you know whose sermon this is?it’s a habit you’ll have for life although things do slow down fall intothemselves and leave the world to silence and to aha? gotcha? you’re itfor now but it won’t be long before another sucker comes this way andyou can hide under the desk with the rest of us : look : sky and sea arean undifferentiated gray even the birds disappear but forecast faith ina word and the osprey is there again hanging head-down in the windit’s plain that being unsure gives you your daily terror you even lift aprayer for it bells ring and you know it is the buoy off Saunders Reefthe red light assures you the buoy is still there that no Debussy bellshave come to dismantle your ears you’re safe in being where you are notthat you’ve got a warranty for life no matter what the salesman said yousigned up for Metaphysics 1 cost a bundle left you high and dry : howdare you take all hope away? well in the first place it crash-landed yearsago you’ve been standing there imagining greaves breastplate helmetwith plumes the whole she-bang but don’t weep today for what you didthen there’s a lot to learn about letting go and you won’t hear a clangof armor when you do in your most invincible day you were a larvaunderfoot you lived by chance shape-shifting you are a fortunate onewithout a shell no plane overhead gun to your head you are accidentallyfree in the full terror of being who you are but tell me now this onceand forever have you built your language out of the things you love?

To-night again the moon’s white mat
Stretches across the dormitory floor
While outside, like an evil cat
The pion prowls down the dark corridor,
Planning, I know, to pounce on me, in spite
For getting leave to sleep in town last night.
But it was none of us who made that noise,
Only the old brown owl that hoots and flies

I

It is not to be bought for a penny
in the candy store, nor picked
from the bushes in the park. It may be found, perhaps,
in the ashes on the distant lots,
among the rusting cans and Jimpson weeds.
If you wish to eat fish freely,
cucumbers and melons,

O Hymen king.

Hymen, O Hymen king,
what bitter thing is this?
what shaft, tearing my heart?
what scar, what light, what fire
searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame?
nameless, O spoken name,
king, lord, speak blameless Hymen.

The damselfly folds its wings
over its body when at rest. Captured,
it should not be killed
in cyanide, but allowed to die
slowly: then the colors,
especially the reds and blues,
will last. In the hand
it crushes easily into a rosy

Nothing is known about Helen but her voice
Strange glittering sparks
Lighting no fires but what is reechoed
Rechorded, set on the icy sea.

All history is one, as all the North Pole is one
Magnetic, music to play with, ice
That has had to do with vision
And each one of us, naked.
Partners. Naked.

* * *

Helen: A Revision
ZEUS: It is to be assumed that I do not exist while most people in the vision assume that I do exist. This is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience. I have to talk like this because I am the lord of both kinds of sky—and I don't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs, I mean the bright sky and the burning sky. I have no intention of showing you my limits. The players in this poem are players. They have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players. I have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play. I am called Zeus and I know this.

VI

Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet.
If your braiding has come loose, if the parting of your hair be not straight, if the ribbons of your bodice be not fastened, do not mind.
Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet.

Come with quick steps over the grass.
If your feet are pale with the dew, if your anklets slacken, if pearls drop out of your chain, do not mind.
Come with quick steps over the grass.

Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky?

"Pheu pheu, ti prosderkesthe m ommasin, tekna;"
[[Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children.]]—Medea. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years ?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —
And that cannot stop their tears.