Poetry

I chose a forest, once, bridges of branches, animal tunnels, This forest spoke to me—basso profundo My outer balance was maintained by setting Space from fore and hind, in direct proportion to Nature’s inclines Inside, I put my bedroom in the basement, ate in the attic and talked and worked in the middle Rearranged the…

A row of green and blue bottles, the light coming through hits a spot on the floor where the cat lies down. A young woman strokes the cat, examines her own fingernails holds onto her plane ticket away from her understanding. To the assassin’s sleeping brain. To the true image of the universe. To a…

Grace. When the child is asleep you hold me with arms hewn like your wood and whisper: Grace. It is your name for me. You believe in prophecy. You are a proud father. I stroke your forehead, wrinkles lead down to the beard. You are not a handsome man. You want more children. I am…

We always wait for dusk the shallowing of the air and cool aggression of the unexpected People doom their porches like owls Lights fill the ball park In summer this is the only time of day Couples drift towards the river in the haze of each other Night’s unmade bed rolls them out again The…

Night. His arm stretches against dark and the pouch I carry without grace or mystery is lighter. We are young but each child will take more my youth than his. (Little one, you hold to me like a swimmer. I balance preciously for you.) There are no miracles in our lives. We couple sometimes and…

Oh my Sabine farm, when shall I see you, when again With old authors, with sleep and lazy hours Can I find sweet forgetfulness of painful life? Oh when will the beans (Pythagoras’ cousins!) lie close With the greens well oiled with fat bacon? Oh nights and feasts of the gods! when I and my…

* Euclid, alone, who looked in beauty’s heart, Assumed the whole was greater than the part; But Cantor, with the infinite in control, Proved that the part was equal to the whole. *Cantor’s Theorem: In an infinite class the whole is no greater than some of its parts.

I. Invocation It’s crazy to think one could describe them— Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eyes and ears— As though they were all alike any more Than sweeps, opticians, poets or masseurs. Moreover, they are for more than one reason Difficult to speak of seriously and freely, And I have never (even this is difficult…

How much too eloquent are the songs we sing. nothing we tell will tell how beautiful is the body. It does not belong even to him or her who lives in it. Beautiful the snail’s body which it bears laboriously in its way through the long garden. The old lady who lives next door has…