In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Take root forever and stand, Does both at once, and neither, Grows blind, and then sees everything, Steps and becomes a man Ofstars instead, Who from invisibility Has come, arranged in the light Ofhimself, revealed tremendously In his fabulous, rigid, eternal Unlooked-for role. The Rib Something has left itselfscattered Under a bush in the evening, Not recalling what lay down at first To make its claimed body for years Disappear into air, Or lay with its small bones desiring To come slowly forth into twilight Where the moon begins to raise up A dead tree now at my side. I pick up a rib And something like what must be The bite small animals die of Encircles myselfand the tree, Coming round again, coming closer, A breath forming teeth, Warming the bones ofmy wrist. That my radiant palm is unopened, That my breast is still whole When I feel it seized on and thrown down By the madness ofhunting Is a miracle, like the dead moon Creating black trees with stone fire. Can it be that the wounds ofbeasts, The Rib / 85 The hurts they inherit no words for, Are like the mouths Ofholy beings we think of, So strongly do they breathe upon us Their bloodletting silence? A rib in my right side speaks To me more softly Than Eve-the bidden, unfreeable shape Ofmy own unfinished desire For life, for death and the OtherSo that the wound in the air And its giver Far offin the brush, all teeth, Hear me answer the patient world Oflove in my side imprisoned As I rise, going moonward toward better And better sleep. The OwlI(ing 1. THE CALL Through·the trees, with the moon underfoot, More soft than I can, I call. I hear the king ofthe owls sing Where he moves with my son in the gloom. My tongue floats offin the darkness. I feel the deep dead turn My blind child round toward my calling, Through the trees) with the moon underfoot) In a sound I cannot remember. It whispers like straw in my ear, And shakes like a stone under water. My bones stand on tiptoe inside it. Which part ofthe sound did I utter? Is it song, or is halfofit whistling? What spirit has swallowed my tongue? Or is it a soundI remember? Drowning with Others / 86 ...

Share