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Wind shook the trees and rain crackled at the windows. Could it have been any other way? Rain coming down, clothes wet, water dripping from our hair? At the window, could it have been a ghost singing its final warning? Clothes wet, water dripping from our hair, he fell on me like rain. I could…

You showed up late and angry. You shat upon the floor. With that, how could we fail to recognize you? Your father, grief’s tent show wizard, the long connected silks pouring from his sleeve. And your mother? Haven’t you known me wholly as the spider knows each tilting and imperfect room she sews to be…

My secret pleasure is the echo my indifference makes when you call on me—even in praise, even in distress. You refuse to believe your senses; so you ignore clear indications of thoughtful malice. Yet my example instructs: you strike out at one another ceaselessly and with growing violence; doubt blossoms as spring comes on. My…

translated by G. Wiersma let’s ignore what happened in the past in a place that could be anywhere a lamp flickers between sparks of light in darkness I am precisely etched happiness or suffering just at this moment are indistinguishable

yes no maybe sometimes always never Never? Yes. Always? No. Sometimes? Maybe— maybe never sometimes. Yes— no always: always maybe. No— never yes. Sometimes, sometimes (always) yes. Maybe never . . . No, no— sometimes. Never. Always? Maybe. Yes— yes no maybe sometimes always never.

And sleep to grief as air is to the rain, upon waking, no explanation, just blue spoons of the eucalyptus measuring and pouring torrents. A kind of winter. As if what is real had been buried and all sure surfaces blurred. Is it me or the world, risen from beneath? Mind refining ruin, or an…

In the owl’s nest the apprentices sit at the workbench of hunger, jostle and plea and reckless silence, and out in the night —the wind rising, nonce of stars— wings shove aside distance (antipodal stint, fragrance of quicklime), a steeple and moody bronze, spiritual ruckus, loose haft of prayer, lawns stitched with mushrooms, desires and…

I I I . I kissed a flame, what did I expect. Those days, you painted in fire. Tangerine, gold: one would have had to be a pilgrim to walk through that wall of molten glass. And purification could be conceived, if not attained, only after many years, in autumn, in a fire greater than…

He tells the deputies he was drowned as a boy in a well of holy water, and so has returned this way: full wet, a rattle of bones beneath his clothes, and all manner of love for his fellow man coming over him each time the way a storm comes over a mountain. The long…