LITMIR.BIZ

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many years ago?

      I opened it. For now I had to know.

      I opened it, and wept. I clung then to the tree

      And let the tears flow out and down my chin.

      Dear boy, strange child, who must have known the years

      And reckoned time and smelled sweet death from flowers

      In the far churchyard.

      It was a message to the future, to myself.

      Knowing one day I must arrive, come, seek, return.

      From the young one to the old. From the me that was small

      And fresh to the me that was large and no longer new.

      What did it say that made me weep?

      I remember you.

      I remember you.

Pretend at Being Blind, Which Calls Truth Near

      The backyard of my mind is filled this summer morning

      With a soft and humming tide

      The gentle glide and simmer, the frail tremoring

      Of wings invisible which pause upon the air,

      Subside, then come again at merest whisper

      To the lip of flower, to the edge of wonder;

      They do not tear asunder, their purpose simple

      Is to waken me to wander without looking

      Never thinking only feeling;

      Thoughts can come long after breakfast.…

      Now’s the time to press the air apart

      And stand submerged by pollen siftings

      And the driftings of those oiled and soundless wings

      Which scribble waves of ink and water

      Flourished eye-wink fluttering and scurry

      Paradox of poise and hurry,

      Standing still while spun-wound-bursting to depart,

      Swift migrations of the heart of universe

      Which surfs the wind and pulses awe;

      Thirsting bird or artful thought the same,

      Sight, not staring, wins the game,

      Touch but do not trap things with the eyes,

      Glance off, encouraging surprise;

      Doing and being … these the true twins of eternal seeing.

      Thinking comes later.

      For now, balance at the equator of morn’s midnight

      With wordless welcome, beckon in the days

      But shout not, nor make motion,

      Tremble not the sea nor ocean of being

      Where thoughts in rounded flight fast-fleeing

      Stone-pebble-skip

      Across the surface of calm mind;

      Pretend at being blind which calls truth near …

      Until the hummingbirds,

      The hummingbirds,

      The humming-

      -birds

      Ten billion gyroscopes,

      Swoop in to touch,

      Spin,

      Whisper,

      Balance,

      Sweet migrations of gossip in each ear.

The Boys Across the Street Are Driving My Young Daughter Mad

      The boys across the street are driving my young daughter mad.

      The boys are only seventeen,

      My daughter one year less,

      And all that these boys do is jump up in the sky

      and

      beautifully

      finesse

      a basketball into a hoop;

      But take forever coming down,

      Their long legs brown and cleaving on the air

      As if it were a rare warm summer water.

      The boys across the street are maddening my daughter.

      And all they do is ride by on their shining bikes,

      Ashout with insults, trading lumps,

      Oblivious of the way they tread their pedals

      Churning Time with long tan legs

      And easing upthrust seat with downthrust orchard rumps;

      Their faces neither glad nor sad, but calm;

      The boys across the street toss back their hair and

      Heedless

      Drive my daughter mad.

      They jog around the block and loosen up their knees.

      They wrestle like a summer breeze upon the lawn.

      Oh, how I wish they would not wrestle sweating on the green

      All groans,

      Until my daughter moans and goes to stand beneath her shower,

      So her own cries are all she hears,

      And feels but her own tears mixed with the water.

      Thus it has been all summer with these boys and my mad daughter.

      Great God, what must I do?

      Steal their fine bikes, deflate their basketballs?

      Their tennis shoes, their skin-tight swimming togs,

      Their svelte gymnasium suits sink deep in bogs?

      Then, wall up all our windows?

      To what use?

      The boys would still laugh wild awrestle

      On that lawn.

      Our shower would run all night into the dawn.

      How can I raise my daughter as a Saint,

      When some small part of me grows faint

      Remembering a girl long years ago who by the hour

      Jumped rope

      Jumped rope

      Jumped rope

      And sent me weeping to the shower.

Old Ahab’s Friend, and Friend to Noah, Speaks His Piece

      At night he swims within my sight

      And looms with ponderous jet across my mind

      And delves into the waves and deeps himself in dreams;

      He is and is not what he seems.

      The White Whale, stranger to my life,

      Now takes me as his writer-kin, his feeble son,

      His wifing-husband, husband-wife.

      I swim with him. I dive. I go to places never

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