Again and Again to the Sea

 

 

I should say a word on this… To do the thing you are wont of respecting,

this seed of trouble put into the wide arable land of events…

To light the green fuse, to make our way with the same instinctiveness,

true to ourselves and not ask where a line of separation will be.

 

I go among the fields and catch a glimpse of a horse beside the pike,

swept on tilted battle flags, gleaming in the sunset.

 

There is an electric fire in human nature I cannot dare to purify,

so that, among these slinky badgers, I think of you and where

the road is often spent…

 

O the fire shone upon the hearth! It’s easy to forget about.

I want you sitting here beside me endlessly.

There is no line straight or crooked, thickly upon both sides

or soon to be populated, which is owned by this or any other moment.

 

We are propelled to act with all the circumstance of wasps on parade.

There are no rewards in this world for the structure of flowers, even if we long for it.

 

Smoke obscures the northern sky. We are not bound

by prophecy or hieroglyphic arts. The streets are wide like a wandering boat.

 

I would like to be a painter, tied not upon these porcelain coils.

That goal will never be obtained. The difference of high sensations with

and without knowledge appears to me this.

This morning is the only proper time for me to write to a girl

whom I love so much, and, even though the subtle colors have

a very modern feel, this is the only difference.

 

Because essences of things are thought by some to be wholly unknown,

I would scarcely kick to come to the top. The town I will be in

tomorrow is a smoky one, wrapped in cats and dulcimers.

Longingly towards the shore, the weather has weighed upon me since.

 

More knowledge has not made us more ignorant.

I want a brighter word than bright,

then I would not need those rhapsodies,

what you see on a few of these screens.

 

Only you in the city are not so boring.

I would build that dome in the air

and still be the more forlorn at the drinking.

 

 

They cannot all be true copies, or rather, some are and others are not.

An intricate grid has been superimposed on our old way of being.

In the middle of looking at the sunrise, he says “ah”

and part of a landmass opens up before us,

draining into a particular ocean.

 

I am unsure of the entire mechanism.

You must here repeat your belief and say the question is too hard for you.

Over the wine and the herd, their life will become like a watered garden.

You have led me on step by step,

never telling me the exact circumstances.

 

Suppose two objects to be presented to us

like an academy of roses.

The main love-chess sujet has already been written

more or less straightforwardly, but still

I can’t shake a certain ambivalence.

 

At noon in the desert a lizard waited.

I am sensible of the trouble you took,

but I can’t help complaining.

 

I n response to the bidding of the mechanic,

to the parts of our own bodies,

are all the faint conceptions that I have.

Upon my soul, I never felt your going,

and I never rhodomontade anywhere but in your presence

Heat and cold, tastes and smells

have something more disagreeable than seizing.

 

What kind of love is this? Our sensible extensions as mythic

as a dragon. But I have read this and all the other beautiful tales…

There is a city made of red glass in the hills of Iuka.

The soul resides in some part of the brain.

What of the manatee when it meets death ,

being when it is hard to account for?

 

I have not the paper by me or I would copy it.

I do not think I have mentioned the discovery of a kingdom

on the moon. They have window frames of gold,

sparkling infantry. I hope you do not blame me

for not obeying your request. I assure you I have done nothing

ever since but search for mistakes and fallacies.

I am indebted to you for your liberality:

two things which you must excuse.

 

Something is missing.

People spoke of my house as “the house with the polyps.”

I thought I had nothing to do but to do.

This is no more than I and all others

who believe in the prospect of a mountain

whose top is lost in the clouds.

But I cannot make the division properly.

 

I countercross hearts under water.

Each of us has arrived at a sense of a momentous historical shift.

In the midst of invasions, confusions, I wear the shirt you gave me.

I have no patience for anything else.

 

That’s just fine! I go on streaming through the sky.

“Why four kisses?” you will say.

I choose an even number that both eyes might have fair play.

The ground feels different under my feet,

but this morning I am the same as when you saw me,

lost in the exhalations of daggers.

 

I watch and dote upon the oil rigs that sit upon the silver mesas

and take the shape of little Eiffel towers with horses prancing over them

so that we will suppose nothing before the part of you which rests among them.

 

I say now why I believe in thundershowers,

all unrevealed even to the powers which met at their creating.

The area is flooded as often as not. I will but lauk it

the casinos which are seen at a distance of several miles

 

If you will fully love me,

if fire is penned up at the feet of beautiful hills…

Those things are acknowledged to have their existence.

I sat and thought, thinking all the things I could have said.

You know how it hurt me to part with you the last time,

but I must leave again.

 

No concessions to truth,

only splotches of blue where the water crept through the foam of the waves.

Every hour I am more and more concentrated on this separate example.

There is no tension comparable to your plaster limbs.

 

Time does not worry about questions,

the tiny birds seeming to sleep in the compasses.

It passes as a hidden form or quality,

a system of mirrors which reflects the thousand angles

that the unknown can take for me.

 

In so little time, you have shown me so many little things

White boats will sail on every sea.

If I have loved in you the working of this landscape,

it is to the exact extent I tell you now,

 

Let it all be buried.

Leave the trees their wispy tongues.

I do not expect constant attention.

Who are you, rising heavy from embankments?

You who turned me back towards my home?

Who are you—I shouldn’t make that claim for you—

who stole everything like a miracle and sits waiting in the garden?