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

Antipolis Through the town-making stones I step lightly. Each thing in the market place looks Clear through me, not able to help it. Squid lounging in death in their barrel See me staring through life down among them. They deepen the depth oftheir gaze. The eyes ofthe dead hold me brightly. I take all their looks into mine And lift them up Alive, and carry them out through the door The Greeks made to give on the sea. The world opens wide and turns blue. My heart shines in me like sunlight. I scramble up sill after sill, Past windows where women are washing My strange, heavy, foreigner's clothes. My voice in amazement dwindles To that ofa child, And with it I call to my son, Who reads Greek somewhere below me. He answers: a dead tongue sings. I leap to the bread-colored rampart, And stroll there, sweating and staring Down into the powder-blue ocean With dozens ofdead, round, all-seeing eyes In my head, which have seen ships sink Through this water And gods rise, wearing their sails. A hundred feet over the ocean, My hands dead white with the flour Ofthe market, knowing and saying The same timeless thought as the sun, Which thinks ofitselfin its glory As Pericles' head on a coin, I hear in my voice two children, My son and my soul, Drowning with Others / I22 Sing to each other through ages. In the windows, men with their women Among my dark garments burn cleanly. Because I am drunk on the rampart, My son reads Homer more deeply, And the blue sea has caught me alive In my own glance, the look ofsome daring, Unbelieved, believing and dancing Most loving creature. The Change Blue, unstirrable, dreaming. The hammerhead goes by the boat, Passing me slowly in looking. He has singled me out from the others; He has put his blue gaze in my brain. The strength ofcreation sees through me: The world is yet blind as beginning. The shark's brutal form never changes. No millions ofyears shall yet turn him From himselfto a man in love, Yet I feel that impossible man Hover near, emerging from darkness, Like a creature oflight from the ocean. He is what I would make ofmyself In ten millions years, ifI could, And arise from my brute ofa body To a thing the world never thought of In a place as apparent as Heaven. I name the blue shark in the water, And the heart ofmy brain has spoken To me, like an unknown brother, Gently ofends and beginnings, Gently ofsources and outcomes, Impossible, brighter than sunlight. The Change / 123 ...

Share