The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945–1992

From Time

Doorstep) Lightning) WaifDreaming Who can tell who was born ofwhat? I go sitting on the doorsteps ofunknowns And ask, and hear nothing From the rhythmical ghosts ofthose others, Or from myselfwhile I am there, but only The solid shifts ofdrumming made ofheart. I come always softly, My head full oflingering off-prints Oflightning-vital, engendering blank, The interim spraddling crack the crowning rollback Whited-out ex nihilo and I am as good as appearing The other time: I come ofa root-system offire, as it fires Point-blank at this hearthstone and doorstep: there is A tingling oflight-sensitive hairs Between me: my clothes flicker And glow with it, under the bracketing split Ofsky, the fasting, saint-hinting glimmer, The shifting blasts ofecho, relocating, And ofan orphaning blaze I have been stressed, and born, and stamped Alive on this doorstep. I believe it between cloud And echo, and my own chosen-and-sifted footstep Arriving, engendered, endangered, loving, Dangerous, seeking ground. From Time Deborah for Years at the Piano My hands that were not born completely Matched that struck at a hurt wire upward Somewhere on the uncentered plain Without cause: my hands that could not befriend Themselves, though openly fielded: From Time / 425 That never came out Intercepting: that could get nothing back Ofa diamonded pay-off, the whole long-promised Harmonic blaze ofboredom never comingnow flock In a slow change like limitless gazing: From back-handed, disheartening cliff-sound, are now A new, level anvilling oftones, Spread crown, an evening sprinkle ofheight, Perfected wandering. Here is The whole body cousinly: are Heartenings, charged with invented time, A chord with lawn-broadness, Lean clarities. With a fresh, gangling resonance Truing handsomely, I draw on left-handed space For a brave ballast shelving and bracing, and from it, then, the light Prowling lift-off, the treble's strewn search and wide-angle glitter. How much ofthe body was wasted Before I drew up here! Who would have thought how much music The forearms had in them! How much ofSchumann and Mozart In the shoulders, and the draining ofthe calves! I sit, as everlasting, In the overleafand memory-make oftedium, Bach and his gist freely with me, four hands Full in the overlook. You bet. The dead at their work-bench altars Half-approving time-releasing. Six from Puella / 426 ...