It is now late evening in April
among first irises and bees I realize
they were opening doors Mary Robert
and William I want to say of clouds sunlight
rain now Didn't we notice the arrows
of hearts hands leaping toward an unmapped
when No age no place though all of one
light Somewhere beneath that cloud
in a little town a white door is opening
maybe for nothing but wind but we will all
one day be there I mean when opening is finally enough
The stars, for the glimpsing,
for the gazing beyond. A crush of stars
heavy with the dark October sky.
Or red blood cells scattered on the slide's white
field. Worlds without, worlds within.
Yesterday, in the tall grass
by a creek below mountains and forming
mountains of cloud, there was
nothing I wanted to possess, I who love
the flesh so much and try to make
a house within poems.
When my clumsy hand first learned to write yes
I placed a sun over trees by a river
and realized much later
yes cannot be written. And no is a stone growing larger
until it shrinks, finally unnoticed
within the mountain.
Petru sang in the choir in Bucarest, sang in the choir
as a boy, and later worked as a barber in Auschwitz
where his jaw and teeth were broken.
Now he sells auto parts in Cleveland. He says
radiator and wipes the spit from his chin.
Marina, he says, her name was Marina.
Pour a glass of water in sunlight. Now lift
it toward your mouth and try to imagine
the same act in a fleshless world.
The sky's swarming with stars. To sing
nothing into being. Grass, trees,
and clouds. Just try.
--To whistle amazement into a forever wind.
And the light from the sky pooled around us.
We put our hands onto it and rubbed it on others, ones distant
or gone.
And chance assigned us a time, and our bodies grew.
And we became aware, then our bodies grew tired, and our minds
were taken away.
Yes, some of us have been found, but what's lost
often remains forever.
Sometimes in the middle of October an April occurs, and we marvel
at green bursting through the papery yellow,
then it snows and the sun comes out all across the white page.
And you stand there, dusted in a brightness, moving alone.