Songs
New life
may be greedy and sullen,
may clench its fists
in a brute effort to live,
barge through the opened door
asking if there have been phone calls.
*
I’ve been at war
in Alexander’s army
swinging a huge pole at hard eyes
that denied me my rights
threatened my peace.
The pole is standing at my door.
To wake tomorrow
fresh as a young, rose-crowned
Etruscan woman!
*
A working terrier
with rough, wheaten coat,
bred to burrow in rocks,
to hunt rats in wild cairns,
comes to live with us
to live with us.
*
I dream of cathedrals,
of entering their darkness
perhaps to see their treasures.
I sit in back and wait.
A young man, his face
and figure like a saint on an icon,
comes with a taper,
wearing an embroidered tunic.
A Summary
I am supposed to bring sweetness
out of the carcass of a lion.
Down under the ribs, in thick shadows
I absently rummage.
in the upper branches of a huge
tulip tree a crow has landed.
The crow is thinking of his brother-in-law.
I am thinking of my uncle—
perfectly tailored,
his voice ravishingly cool,
a master of intimacy
that has no danger.
Always on time.
His sister, in a silk print dress,
what did she not tell him?
He pretended not to see
the crow looking down.
Nor did he ever realize
that I was hunting for honey
in the hip sockets of the lion.
