The Living End

Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten.
When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer
pavements,
The window-sills were wet from rain in the night,
Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots
As among grotesque trees.

Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond.
Slight-voiced bells separated hour from hour,

When I first heard you on the phone
your voice had to be that '40s wartime voice
for it to get under my skin like it did,
after seven years asleep.

You’re at the beginning of something, you said,
and I’m at the end of something;
but you didn’t go away,
twice-born, three times, coming around,

in the beginning
there was no end

the ground we
walked on was
a memory

our shadows
false stories

our clothing

‘Oh! sister, he is so swift and tall,
Though I want the ride, he will spoil it all,
For, when he sets out, he will let me fall,
And give me a bump, I know!
Mamma, what was it I heard you say,
About the world’s hobbies, the other day,
How some would get on and gallop away,
To end with an overthrow?’

‘I said, little prattler, the world was a race,
That many would mount with a smile on the face,
And ride to their ruin, or fall in disgrace:
That him, who was deaf to fear,
And did not look our for a rein or a guide,
His courser might cast on the highway side,

I

“At odds again,”
hands moving out
of the shadows.
And now, now
everything seems
definite, discrete,
fingers webbed

The seas has made a wall for its defence
of falling water. Those whose impertinence
leads them to its moving ledges
it rejects. Those who surrender
it will with the next wave drag under.

Sand is the beginning and the end
of our dominion.

The way to the dunes is easy.

Barely tolerated, living on the margin
In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued
On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso
Before it was time to start all over again.
There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils,
And Angelica, in the Ingres painting, was considering
The colorful but small monster near her toe, as though wondering whether forgetting
The whole thing might not, in the end, be the only solution.

You are Jehovah, and I am a wanderer.
Who should have mercy on a wanderer
if not Jehovah? You create and I decay.
Who should have mercy on the decayed
if not the creator? You are the Judge
and I the guilty Who should have mercy
on the guilty if not the Judge? You are All
and I am a particle. Who should have mercy

I had eight birds hatcht in one nest,
Four Cocks were there, and Hens the rest.
I nurst them up with pain and care,
No cost nor labour did I spare
Till at the last they felt their wing,
Mounted the Trees and learned to sing.
Chief of the Brood then took his flight
To Regions far and left me quite.
My mournful chirps I after send
Till he return, or I do end.
Leave not thy nest, thy Dame and Sire,
Fly back and sing amidst this Quire.
My second bird did take her flight
And with her mate flew out of sight.
Southward they both their course did bend,