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The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow |
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Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh |
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A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow |
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Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window? |
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There is a rusty light on the pines tonight |
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Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow |
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Down into the bones of the birches |
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And the spires of the churches |
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Jutting out from the shadows |
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The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow |
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And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope |
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In the mouth of the south below |
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We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey |
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We thought our very hearts would up and melt away |
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From that snow in the nighttime |
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Just going |
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And going |
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And the stirring of wind chimes |
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In the morning |
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In the morning |
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Helps me find my way back in |
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From the place where I have been |
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And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river |
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I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water |
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Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever |
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In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror |
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Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water |
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You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger |
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Thoough all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades loosed in December |
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I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember |
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That the meteorite is a source of the light |
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And the meteor's just what we see |
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And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee |
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And the meteorite's just what causes the light |
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And the meteor's how it's perceived |
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And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee |
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You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in |
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Threw the window wide and cried, "Amen! Amen! Amen!" |
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The whole world stopped to hear you hollering |
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You looked down and saw now what was happening |
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The lines are fading in my kingdom |
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(Though I have never known the way to border them in) |
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So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen |
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Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen |
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And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within |
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The talk in town's becoming downright sickening |
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In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare |
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I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there |
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And row through the nighttime |
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Gone healthy |
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Gone healthy all of a sudden |
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In search of the midwife |
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Who could help me |
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Who could help me |
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Help me find my way back in |
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There are worries where I've been |
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Say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered |
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Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water |
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(Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper) |
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Emily, they'll follow your lead by the letter |
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And I make this claim, and I'm not ashamed to say I know you better |
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What they've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter |
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Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor |
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The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever |
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Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning |
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There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning |
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Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now |
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Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow |
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Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow |
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With hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow |
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And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour |
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The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours |
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And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines |
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Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines |
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Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight |
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The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light |
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Squint skyward and listen |
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Loving him, we move within his borders |
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Just asterisms in the stars' set order |
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We could stand for a century |
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Staring |
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With our heads cocked |
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In the broad daylight at this thing |
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Joy |
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Landlocked |
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In bodies that don't keep |
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Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being |
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Until we don't be told |
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Take this |
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Eat this |
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Told |
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The meteorite is the source of the light |
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And the meteor's just what we see |
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And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee |
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And the meteorite's just what causes the light |
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And the meteor's how it's perceived |
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And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee |
