248

247

246

245

244
We took a walk in the park today
Where the air trembled with nothingness,
Somewhat damp,
And a squirrel held his tale like a boa--
Nothing, to him.
Or was it being? With a fonted sky
Toiled over with words convexed, concaved:
The bulging topology of clouds,
Wisped, perhaps, by prickly italics.
At any rate, our thoughts seemed as fellows,
And no vapor arose about us.

243

242

241

240
The encompassing shallow-hearted deity
That was, is not--
Nor space nor time
But the particulate word
Enchanting: the sea of suns
Is measured.
The primer's eluctable equations, monks' cribs,
Are now stranged, flavored, and spun
To the depth and breadth of the matter--
And the maker's extremity, finger extended,
Is uncurtained as a clockwork chaos.

239

238

237

236
Unblink and it remains,
The glass edges, the antemeridian light,
The four sisters in Sunday's weeds
Called from Wednesday tasks.
Now--bone ache, cow shit, prairie wind so tired of it.
But there's a thing to do and another after,
And I'll not stop. I'll not stop.

235

234

233

232

231

230

229

228

227

226
A stone lies on the beachy shelf,
Its sand pedestal fed and eaten
By the obedient curving wave.
.
In the lacunae of the habitual
Is a chance thorn among millions,
And the drop pricked there may fabric
Cove, sand, wave, sky, and all.

225

224

223

222

221

220

219

218

217

216

215
The meaning of a strand of hair
Is not, and is not in the eye.
The words that would carriage a reflection
Slough intention:
There is nothing in that still pool--
But undue specificity,
A diffraction of seeming.

214

213

212

The physiology of the heart rests on the page

And its motions are painstakingly clear.

.

In the chambering lamplight four birds flutter

To a shout in the street and the unanswering day.

.

Insufficiency: a swimmer in the ever-turbulance

Must struggle thus, but nothing more.

211

210

209
It's an illness when looking at the sky
Having one but thinking of the next--
What is it, without words?
A nausea of longing
Engendering blankness.
Unperceived: the thud of a distant storm
And a horizon's shadowing flash.

208

207

206

205

204
What matters is the weight of sense,
Memory's false remorse.
The pine without scent, color,
Without sharpness.

No burial nor summation
But the sun turns
The shadow of a blade of grass.

What is.
A marble with a name in a field,
And a starling's plod gait and dart.

203

202

201

200

199