Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

The Vase

whom you do not love now. Zoo keepers will make a pet of you because of your round, sad eyes and musical bray, and you will love your keeper as you do not now. All is well, then, I tell myselfsilently, listening to the voice in my ear speak to me of my future. And what will happen to you, voice in my ear, I ask silently, and the answer comes at once: I will be your gentle, musical bray that will help you as a zebra all your days. I will mediate between the world and you, and I will learn to love you as a zebrawhom I did not love as a human being. The Vase See how tall and straight I stand with blossoms above me. Could anything be more beautiful than I who am nothing but an enclosure upon emptiness? The Metamorphosis Bumping against rock in the dark, he becomes the rock, stiffening in pain. The pain fades and he becomes the lightness and relief. He moves and becomes the movement. A rock in his path once more, he falls to his knees in awe of his past self. His knees make him a suppliant of his changes. He seeks to know and becomes a form of the curious. He touches himself at all points and becomes his hands. They touch stone, a change he remembers, 108 I Poems of the 1970s ...