or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing-
i said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
for hope would be hope for the wrong thing wait without love,
for love would be love of the wrong thing
there is yet faith
but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting
in the brown baked features
the eyes of a familiar compound ghost
both intimate and unidentifiable
thus said the wise merlin
to die is to have been born i am not eager to rehearse
my thoughts and theory which you have forgotten
and he
which shall fructify in the lives of others
and do not think of the fruit of action
and the time of death is every moment
'on whatever sphere of being
the mind of a man may be intent
at the time of death' - that is the one action
figlia del tuo figlio,
queen of heaven
so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing
and those who saw them off have left the platform
their faces relax from grief into relief,
to the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours
accompanies you
since that one night or evening lost
in time now, on which your restless
eyes first deciphered her forever
in a garden or patio turned to dust
misquoting virgil
involved with past and future
let them be
they say
the first snow will fall
america waits for me on every street,
but i feel in the decline of evening
today so long, and yesterday so brief
are likewise permanent
with such permanence as time has
whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
is not in question
the backward look behind the assurance
of recorded history, the backward half-look
over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror
all who have loved me and forgotten
space, time and borges now leaving me
although we were not
the dry salvages - presumably les trois sauvages - is a small
group of rocks, with a beacon, off the n
human kind
cannot bear very much reality
no wind, but pentecostal fire
in the dark time of the year
the communication
of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living
a silence already filled with noises,
a canvas on which emerges
a chorus of smiles, a winter morning you'll not be seen to visit that well
under white sun or yellow moon
in spite of which we like to think
that we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
again, in spite of that, we call this friday good
the taste of fruit, the taste of water,
that face returned to us in dream,
the first jasmine flowers of november,
the infinite yearning of the compass,
a book we thought forever lost,
the pulsing of a hexameter,
the little key that opens a house,
the smell of sandalwood or library,
the ancient name of a street,
the colourations of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date that we were searching for,
counting the twelve dark bell-strokes,
a sudden physical pain
when christ has judged me
who knows what they'll see
but which
that i've walked
already one last time, indifferently
and without knowing it, submitting
to one who sets up omnipotent laws
and a secret and a rigid measure
for the shadows, the dreams, and forms
that work the warp and weft of this life
you are not those who saw the harbour
receding, or those who will disembark
though not to the ear,
the murmuring shell of time, and not in any language
fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging
they have found one another the wonder that i feel is easy,
yet ease is cause of wonder
they know me well who surround me here,
know well my afflictions and weakness
now there are red houses side by side
and the delicate bronze of the leaves
and chaste winter and pious wood
neither from nor towards
at the still point, there the dance is,
but neither arrest nor movement
the past is finished
you are not the same people who left that station
or who will arrive at any terminus,
while the narrowing rails slide together behind you
not escaping from the past
into different lives, or into any future
or
watching the furrow that widens behind you,
you shall not think
the future is before us
no occupation either, but something given
and taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
ardour and selflessness and self-surrender
that the future is a faded song, a royal rose or a lavender spray
of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened
i gaze but don't understand
it's as if they were strangers
and that is where we start all these are usual
pastimes and drugs, and features of the press
and always will be, some of them especially
whether on the shores of asia, or in the edgware road,
men's curiosity searches past and future
and clings to that dimension
release omens
by sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
with playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
or barbituric acids, or dissect
the recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors-
to explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams
now they are paolo, francesca,
not two friends who are sharing
the savour of a fable
dying is a habit
that's well-known to many
on the money'
for liberation - not less of love but expanding
of love beyond desire, and so liberation
from the future as well as the past
driven by daemonic, chthonic
powers
a symbol perfected in death
they will be in another, greater,
but what can that matter to them but i cannot say where