![]() ![]() Aren’t there others?- Other wounds flying through the air- other Wonders than honor-in-war and words worse Than rage- the broken gold gears In the blue jay’s throat- the crow that dares The kid with a bb-gun to shoot. Ethics scratches For grubs in the dust in which it bathes. What is the geometric proof Of God or love written on the dusky wing Of the mourning dove. Each a kind of knowledge Flying through the columbarium And to catch one is to know. Hermit thrush who cries Inside her song. Oriole that weaves a tear from tufts of deer And thistle down. The I-wear-the-sun- Between-my-eyes white-throated sparrow. The I-carry-the-sun- On-my-back bobolink. The who-clasped-around-my-neck- This-chain-if-not-God dove. The wound-I-bear-I-do-not-feel rose-breasted Grosbeak. There are the birds: The do-not-touch-me For-I-am-not-yours scarlet tanager. No ball of wax Into which the falling leaves fall and leave Memory: always a world, never the. And then some voice Asks you to think: I think the beehive looks like The full moon that lights it up-the mind says To itself-I think the child’s hand is an oak leaf- A theory-what the soul says to itself-is thinking- So many leaves-the eye says to itself-from trees Fall down into the wax-I know-the edges Touch and the wax melds-and I don’t know- The leaves together-what I know-can’t be told Apart-says the tongue to itself-all by itself- What I know I can’t tell-I can’t pull it apart-īut there are other theories-says the mind Of the mind. And then some voice Asks you what you think. The music Of their least thought words- the baby’s sleeping With his mouth open I don’t think that’s how you spell it The weatherman got it wrong-helplessly recorded On the wax-hemisphere until so many voices Overlap no single voice remains. Then there is nothing that won’t Make its impression-sun-script on small waves, Sun-page on flat stone, sun-shaft shot down Through the canopy-maze of the dark leaves, The bright spot on the ground. ![]() That finger that pressing down on the mind’s hard wax Softens it. Dipping finger in the candle wax and peeling it off Like another skin. ![]() Listen: Child-no-longer-young who used to play. From where in the night I could hear Voices speak my name, could hear a song play On a cylinder of wax, a violence, a violin, a piano Note beneath the static and the static like a heartbeat Throbbed, like a sudden wind blown through The mind-tree’s wax-covered leaves a wind That suddenly dies-the voices, they were legion, The chorus in the blood, mumbling out the grave Delay, gravel on the cemetery driveway, the stones Time wears away, time wears away their names. Closet where as I child I hid myself and hid My fears. Leaf by leaf I took them out and put them on The floor, and when there was no more, I put Them back in the empty box, fit on the lid, and hid New memory in the closet with the other dead Years. The minutes-of-green-flame-faith buried Within the darkening love of the almond leaf. The dark-faith-sunspot-hours of yellow Beech. No other path Led to the oak leaf’s cinder-glow-below-dark-ash Orange. ![]() No other path led to the maple leaf’s dying-sun- Red larger than my hand that held it. Look: I could be there with him in the woods in no other Way. Put them in a department store box And sent them through the air to my home. He’d walk the changed woods gathering Leaves no longer living-cast in the color shroud Of no one’s weaving-a brighter thought thinks The gold-finch dull, though the cardinal pretends Not to notice or know-and taking death’s small portion Home, dipped the leaves in paraffin wax. In the fall I went away to where I lived The year. The sun moved across the sky, around the earth, A day, a day, and bees, those day-laborers, heaved Pollen and carried a sting, and bore on their gleaming Backs a stripe of day and a stripe of night, of night, A robber moon, thief of her own life, and in the hive Round as the moon, they locked the work of the field Away in wax vaults, food for Time to eat some other Time, the bees. I saw him then Fishing for lake trout throwing the sunfish too bony Back. Where The dogwood’s new pale moon flowers browned At the edge by brittle June. Down by the lake where ivy covered the ground. I saw him in the summers when the leaves were green. ![]()
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