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Drawn offlike standing water Into the cloud, turning green; The field becomes whiter and darker, And fire in us gathers and gathers Not to call down death to touch brightly The only metal for miles In the hands ofjudged, innocent men, But for our use only, who in the first sheaves ofrain Sit thunderstruck, having now the power to speak With deadly intent oflove. The PoisonedMan When the rattlesnake bit, I lay In a dream ofthe country, and dreamed Day after day ofthe river, Where I sat with a jackknife and quickly Opened my sole to the water. Blood shed for the sake ofone's life Takes on the hid shape ofthe channel, Disappearing under logs and through boulders. The freezing river poured on And, as it took hold ofmy blood, Leapt up round the rocks and boiled over. I felt that my heart's blood could flow Unendingly out ofthe mountain, Splitting bedrock apart upon redness, And the current oflife at my instep Give deathlessly as a spring. Some leaves fell from trees and whirled under. I saw my struck bloodstream assume, Inside the cold path ofthe river, The inmost routes ofa serpent Through grass, through branches and leaves. Helmets / I58 When I rose, the live oaks were ashen And the wild grass was dead without flame. Through the blasted cornfield I hobbled, My foot tied up in my shirt, And met myoid wife in the garden, Where she reached for a withering apple. I lay in the country and dreamed Ofthe substance and course ofthe river While the different colors offever Like quilt patches flickered upon me. At last I arose, with the poison Gone out ofthe seam ofthe scar, And brought my wife eastward and weeping, Through the copper fields springing alive With the promise ofharvest for no one. In theMarbleQuarry Beginning to dangle beneath The wind that blows from the undermined wood, I feel the great pulley grind, The thread I cling to lengthen And let me soaring and spinning down into marble, Hooked and weightlessly happy Where the squared sun shines Back equally from all four sides, out ofstone And years ofdazzling labor, To land at last among men Who cut with power saws a Parian whiteness And, chewing slow tobacco, Their eyebrows like frost, Shunt house-sized blocks and lash them to cables And send them heavenward Into small-town banks, In the Marble Quarry / I59 ...

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