dying is a habit
that's well-known to many
on the money'
they'll long outlast our oblivion and never know that we are gone
figlia del tuo figlio,
queen of heaven
no wind, but pentecostal fire
in the dark time of the year
a condition of complete simplicity
costing not less than everything
and all shall be well and
all manner of thing shall be well
when the tongues of flames are in-folded
into the crowned knot of fire
and the fire and the rose are one
not as making a trip that will be unpayable
for a haul that will not bear examination
every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
every poem an epitaph
where every word is at home,
taking its place to support the others,
the word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
an easy commerce of the old and the new,
the common word exact without vulgarity,
the formal word precise but not pedantic,
the complete consort dancing together they will be in another, greater,
but what can that matter to them
neither from nor towards
at the still point, there the dance is,
but neither arrest nor movement the backward look behind the assurance
of recorded history, the backward half-look
over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror
watching the furrow that widens behind you,
you shall not think
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
the future is before us
not escaping from the past
into different lives, or into any future
the past is finished
or
not admiration or victory
but simply to be accepted
as part of an undeniable reality,
like stones and trees
driven by daemonic, chthonic
powers
when christ has judged me
who knows what they'll see
a periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
with words and meanings
a symbol perfected in death
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 patient is no longer here
human kind
cannot bear very much reality
they know me well who surround me here,
know well my afflictions and weakness
there is yet faith
but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting
wait without love,
for love would be love of the wrong thing
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
see, they return, and bring us with them
so krishna, as when he admonished arjuna
on the field of battle
the shame
of things ill done and done to others' harm
which once you took for exercise of virtue
misquoting virgil
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 for liberation - not less of love but expanding
of love beyond desire, and so liberation
from the future as well as the past
you'll never see the bright moon again,
you've now achieved the unalterable
sum of moments granted you by fate
that soon
we may touch, love, explain that their merely being there
means something the pools where it offers to our curiosity
the more delicate algae and the sea anemone the starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale's backbone
the sea is the land's edge also, the granite,
into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
its hints of earlier and other creation
the wonder that i feel is easy,
yet ease is cause of wonder