Travel

On the anniversary of the execution
the streets were quiet
shadowed by the sudden opening
of leaves in the early heat
exercises in perspective
empty to the point where the city
folded back its sepulchers and the travelers
spilled out and on to the next town

to go around the world
continuously to collect souvenirs or evidence
in relays of carriages and vessels
was not my intention
but here we are
suffering from deficient rapture
in the vast sun-flattened landscape
scaffolding stands ready for the son et lumière

we have arrived at the site
of the most recent disturbances
are shown the former prison
marked for changes to come
the smell of the damp cement
the stains a darker gray
the walls and seams a map
of loss and recovery
the dust of busyness
like snow on the ground
the chalky outlines of many feet

we emerge into the sunlight
around the corner
the drone and chirp of strange language
shadows of stone
infused with the dust and hue of stone
conceal the speakers
the shadows are black sharp, they slice
across the path; masking
the ruins we have come to view
eyes closed to the blinding sky
we walk on

What was it I lost?

What was it I lost?
Was it one or the latest of many?
A feeling, perhaps, or a friend,
then again, a plan, a key,
not essential but meant to be kept.

Between waking and sleeping
the palpable resonance of the familiar—
the sweet companionable rote
of bread and coffee and lists,
of seasons opening on their hinges—
plaited currents of night and day
little by little have undone the levees.

The exact moment is unknowable.
The dry verges where I stand
little by little open to the waters
where the intended, the loved,
the merely desired,
find their traceless exit.
I closed my eyes to their dark dissolving.

Now I am made to feel
not the nature of the loss:
but the heaviness
that hollows the air by its absence,
the green flame that limns the empty forms
when the light goes out.

I have looked everywhere,
in the garden, in the passageway
in the black hole under the stair,
for a long time so certain
I would be surprised
to see it where it has always been,
savoring the relief,
the glad welcome I would utter.

There you are, I would say.
It is still on my tongue, like a prayer.

We are told everyone has the same view of the universe

I woke to the black sky beyond the blue
there the stars like electric bees
webbed space with wavering lines
and loosed a phosphorus pollen
on clouds, on trees
on the vague and chilly calyx of the moon

no sound, no color, no angle
nothing that was not imaged round
and each thing’s roundness a decay
a sinking from its origin
curving back, a failed venture

the gates of the skull sprang open
night poured in among the bone
darkness was the lid of a vast eye
pressed by the heavy stars
and I within its sealed and struggling vision