The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport of the pharaoh A little while later the Pharisees dragged a comb through the meadow Do you remember what they called up to you and me in our window?
There is a rusty light on the pines tonight Sun pouring wine, Lord, or marrow Into the bones of the birches And the spires of the churches Jutting out from the shadows And the yoke and the axe and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope In the mouth of the south below
We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey We thought our very hearts would up and melt away From the snow in the night time Just going And going And the stirring of wind chimes In the morning In the morning Helps me find my way back in From the place where I have been
And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror
Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger Though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades loosed in December I promised you I‘d set them to verse so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is a source of the light And the meteor's just what we see And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
And the meteorite's just what causes the light And the meteor's how it's perceived And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee
You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in Threw the windows wide and cried: Amen! Amen! Amen! The whole world stopped to hear you hollering You looked down and saw now what was happening
The lines are fadin' in my kingdom Though I have never known the way to border 'em in So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within The talk in town's becoming downright sickening
In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there And row through the night time So healthy Gone healthy all of a sudden In search of a midwife Who can help me Who can help me Help me find my way back in And there are worries where I've been
And say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper Emily, they'll follow your lead by the letter And I make this claim, and I'm not ashamed to say I knew you better What they've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter
Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning
Come on home; the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow With hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up their brows
And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour Butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines
Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light Squint skyward and listen Loving him, we move within his borders Just asterisms in the stars' set order
We could stand for a century Starin', with our heads cocked In the broad daylight at this thing Joy Landlocked In bodies that don't keep Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being Till we don't be Told take this And eat this
Told the meteorite is the source of the light And the meteor's just what we see And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
And the meteorite's just what causes the light And the meteor's how it's perceived And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee
And there was a booming above you that night, black airplanes flew over the sea. And they were lowing and shifting like beached whales, shelled snails as you strained and you squinted to see the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry.
You froze in your sand shoal, prayed for your poor soul; sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl. And when the bread broke? fell in bricks of wet smoke? my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke.
Then there was a silence you took to mean something: Run, sing, for alive you will evermore be. And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking has gone east, while you're left to explain them to me? released from their hairless and blind cavalry.
With your hands in your pockets, stubbily running to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning?
Well, what is this craziness? This crazy talking? You caught some small death when you were sleepwalking.
It was a dark dream, darlin', it's over. The fire breather is beneath the clover. Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever, a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather.
But I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever), down to the swimming hole, where there grows a bitter herb that blooms but one day a year by the riverside? I'd bring it here:
Apply it gently to the love you've lent me.
While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed, and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze.
And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly, gone treacly, nearly slowed to a stop in this heat? in a frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath.
Press on me: we are restless things. Webs of seaweed are swaddling. And you call upon the dusk of the musk of a squid? shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib.
Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes, I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it! Smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened. Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking.
And when the fire moves away, fire moves away, son. Why would you say I was the last one?
Scrape your knee: it is only skin. Makes the sound of violins.
And when I cut your hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings, I'm the happiest woman among all women.
And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see.
Knee deep, trudging along? the seagull weeps 'so long'? Humming a threshing song?
Until the night is over, hold on, hold on; hold your horses back from the fickle dawn.
I have got some business out at the edge of town, candy weighing both of my pockets down till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them (and knowing how the common folk condemn what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm: Being a woman. Being a woman).
But always at the mountainside you're clambering, groping blindly, hungry for anything; picking through your pocket lining? well, what is this? Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain. Little sister, he will be back again. I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain; spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and dangling silently from all the blooming cherry trees, in tiny nooses, safe from everyone? nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done? Be a woman. Be a woman.
Though we felt the spray of the waves, we decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far. We weren't afraid, cause we know what you are, and you know that we know what you are.
Awful atoll? O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow! Bawl, bellow: Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow. Toddle and roll: teethe an imalpable bit of leather, while yarrow, heather and hollyhock awkwardly molt along the shore.
Are you mine? My heart? Mine anymore?
Stay with me for a while. That's an awfully real gun. I know life will lay you down, as the lightning has lately done.
Failing this, failing this, follow me, my sweetest friend, to see what you anointed, in pointing your gun there. Lay it down! Nice and slow! There is nowhere to go,
save up: up where the light, undiluted, is weaving, in a drunk dream, at the sight of my baby, out back:
back on the patio, watching the bats bring night in
?while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped.
Last week our picture window produced a half-word, heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird.
We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake, and pant and labor over every intake.
I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace, then thought I ought to take her to a higher place. Said, "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you, and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view."
Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight. We tramped through the poison oak, heartbroke and inchoate. The dogs were snapping and you cuffed their collars, while I climbed the tree-house. Then how I hollered!
Cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two; then saw the treetops, cocked her head, and up and flew. (While, back in the world that moves, often, according to the hoarding of these clues, dog still run roughly around little tufts of finch-down.)
And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland, but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless. While down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming; we have everything.
Life is thundering blissful towards death
in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness.
You stopped by; I was all alive. In my doorway, we shucked and jived. And when you wept, I was gone; see, I got gone when I got wise. But I can't with certainty say we survived.
Then down and down and down and down and down and deeper, stoke, without sound, the blameless flames, you endless sleeper.
Through fire below, and fire above, and fire within, sleep through the things that couldn't have been, if you hadn't have been.
And when the fire moves away, fire moves away, son. And why would you say I was the last one?
All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone. Take my bones, I don't need none. Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on! Suck all day on a cherry stone. Dig a little hole not three inches round? Spit your pit in the hole in the ground. Weep upon the spot for the starving of me! Till up grows a fine young cherry tree. When the bough breaks, what'll you make for me? A little willow cabin to rest on your knee. Well What will I do with a trinket such as this? Think of your woman, who's gone to the west. But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed! Then I'll crawl 'cross the salt flats, to stroke your sweet head. Come across the desert with no shoes on! I love you truly, or I love no-one.
Fire moves away. Fire moves away, son. Why would you say that I was the last one? Last one.
Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, a fire. Get going, and I'm going to be right behind you.
And if the love of a woman or two, dear, could move you to such heights, then all I can do is do, my darling, right by you.
When you ate I saw your eyelashes Saw them shake like wind on grasses In the corn field when she called me Moths surround me, thought they'd drown me
And I miss your precious heart And I miss your precious heart
Dried rose petal, red brown circles Framed your eyes and stained your knuckles Dried rose petal, red brown circles Framed your eyes and stained your knuckles
And all those lonely nights down by the river Brought me bread and water, water in But though I tried so hard my little darling I couldn't keep the night from coming in
And all those lonely nights down by the river I was brought my bread and water by the kith and the kin Now in the quiet hour when I am sleepin' I cannot keep the night from comin' in
Why've you gone away Gone away again I'll sleep through the rest of my days If you've gone away again I sleep through the rest of my days And I sleep through the rest of my days And I sleep through the rest of my days
Can you hear me, will you listen Don't come near me, don't go missing In the lissome light of evening Help me, Cosmia, I'm grieving
And all those lonely nights down by the river Brought me bread and water, water in But though I tried so hard my little darling I couldn't keep the night from coming in
And all those lonely nights down by the river I was brought my bread and water by the kith and the kin Now in the quiet hour when I am sleepin' I cannot keep the night from comin' in
Beneath the porch light we've all been circling Beat our dust hearts, singe our flour wings But in the corner, something is happening Wild Cosmia, what have you seen
Water were your limbs, and the fire was her hair And then the moonlight caught your eye And you rose through the air Well, if you've seen true light, then this is my prayer Will you call me when you get there
And I miss your precious heart And miss, and miss, and miss And miss, and miss, and miss, and miss, and miss your heart But release your precious heart To its feast, for precious hearts
