Let the past speak for itself. I am living
as always. You can find me here any evening
shaken into tranquility that the years recognize
like an old friend who understands everything.
Dark stuffed intensity, bedrooms
fetid with strength selfconfounded
whistle into spring. First I was alone,
barely conscious of birth and death
in this house till, strong, you entered.
Then there was playing, suites and viols,
beguiling pain with our voices,
making a world out of hell-birth,
a world we had not suspected
lay offshore. Through storms we sailed straight.
Now bird-cries. Did we instruct them,
with our fallen art, toward meaning?
From the bottom of the tempest-
ridden ocean silken sands spread
over springland to smooth triumph.
Here is water-clear narcissus
shadowed from us by green note points.
Each spring, each flower's carnival
hides from its neighbors' modesty.
Our birth is done, that escapade.
What would they have us do? We have
accomplished spring from heated winter.
What more does the rainbow ask? You
and I, like old pine trees, drop our
needles in the sun, sewing songs.
No orchestra invites our results.
Shall we then, born to be borne on
winds and drama, in tongues of flame,
unfold our muslin to the lines
at death-rooms, and pale strawberries?
I have the language of coffee cups
now that the trees are gone.
