Country Music: Selected Early Poems

Homage to Ezra Pound

Homage to Ezra Pound Past San Sebastiano, past The Ogni Santi and San Trovaso, down The Zattere and left Across the tiered bridge to where —Off to the right, half-hidden— The Old Dogana burns in the spring sun: This is how you arrive. This is the street where Pound lives, A cul-de-sac Of rheumy corners and cracked stone, At whose approach the waters Assemble, the gulls cry out; In here—unspeaking, unturned—he waits, Sifting the cold affections of the blood. * Others have led the way, Vanishing in their sleep, their beds Unmade, the sheets still damp From what has set them apart— Cancer or bad lungs, the wrack Of advancing age, the dull Incense of suicide . . . And he has survived, Or refused to follow, and now Walks in the slow strobe of the sunlight, Or sits in his muffled rooms, Wondering where it went bad, And leans to the signal, the low Rustle of wings, the splash of an oar. *11 Today is one of those days One swears is a prophesy: The air explicit and moist, As though rilled with unansweredprayers; The twilight, starting to slide Its sooty ringers along the trees; And you, Pound, Awash in the wrong life, Cut loose upon the lagoon (the wind Off-shore, and gaining), the tide going out . . . Here is your caul and caustic, Here is your garment, Cold-blooded father of light— Rise and be whole again. Venice 12 ...