A yak is a prehistoric cabbage: of that, at least, we may be sure.
But tell us, sages of the solarium, why is that light
still hidden back there, among house-plants and rubber sponges?
For surely the blessed moment arrived at midday
and now in mid-afternoon, lamps are lit,
for it is late in the season. And as it struggles now
and is ground down into the day, complaints
are voiced at the edges of darkness: look, it says,
it has to be this way and no other. Time that one seizes
and takes along with one is running through the holes
like sand from a bag. And these sandy moments
accuse us, are just what our enemy ordered,
the surly one on his throne of impacted
gold. No matter if our tale be interesting
or not, whether children stop to listen and through the rent
veil of the air the immortal whistle is heard,
and screeches, songs not meant to be listened to.
It was some stranger’s casual words, overheard in the wind-blown
street above the roar of the traffic and then swept
to the distant orbit where words hover: alone, it says,
but you slept. And now everything is being redeemed,
even the square of barren grass that adjoins your doorstep,
too near for you to see. But others, children and others, will
when the right time comes. Meanwhile we mingle, and not
because we have to, because some host or hostess
has suggested it, beyond the limits of polite
conversation. And we, they too, were conscious of having
known it, written on the flyleaf of a book presented as a gift
at Christmas 1882. No more trivia, please, but music
in all the spheres leading up to where the master
wants to talk to you, place his mouth over yours,
withdraw that human fishhook from the crystalline flesh
where it was melting, give you back your clothes, penknife,
