Love's Last Number. Christopher Howell
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Название: Love's Last Number

Автор: Christopher Howell

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Зарубежные стихи

Серия:

isbn: 9781571319333

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ had become and what would be.

      She said, “I thought just now an owl

      flew out of me, an emerald being, a species

      of moon.”

      And I said, “Sometimes.”

      It was so cold we grew afraid of a warmth

      that moved in the woods nearby, beginning

      to curl toward us like a smile.

      So we prayed and the sun came up with not

      a single barnyard crowing, not one worried dog.

      We ate snow and kissed and thought of dancing.

      We knew where we were and that we were

      what others would call an escape ecstatic

      with grief because we were so few,

      because our shadows wore so many

      unforgettable strangers.

      So there would be warmth and food, and still days

      by the river. There would be each other again

      and again in the light of a naked

      and forgiving room. There would be nameless

      secrets that would need nothing but to ask

      “Does anyone really survive?”

      and keep on asking.

      CONNECTIVITY

      A huge ball of twine turns to bread

      and feeds the five thousand, Jesus unrolling it

      and watching the sky for signs.

      In the church on the hill someone has lost

      the thread

      of her devotion while underground

      the minotaur sings sadly of a boy

      strung out, lost in the maze

      of shopping carts and limited offers

      and girls undressed, the gold filigree

      of youth lying

      all about them, worshippers

      filing past whatever follows something thin

      and pale, amazed, loaves and fishes

      and twine if you have it.

      Let those who hunger stretch forth

      their hands, all right?

      Let something come to show

      whose world [is this?]

      and which thread is more miraculous

      than dust.

      Bright red. Blue. Something heavy

      near your heart as Christ stands

      on the hillside of empty baskets, fish-bone trash

      and crusts of rye, immense cat’s cradle

      above him in the sky.

      DIMINISHING RETURNS

      A crow sits in the dark, thinking

      I’m an owl scouring this field for mice.

      Then he thinks, I’m suddenly wise, too:

      rem acu tetigisti, brother.

      He looks in all his leafy cupboards

      for testimonials and diplomas.

      Finding none, he says, perhaps

      I am an hawk, and he can feel

      his beak bend down and a pleasurable

      bloodlust fill his mind like gasoline.

      Oh, I’m a killer now, I am,

      he says to his glinting talons,

      but it’s night, I really ought to be

      sleeping. So he sleeps. In his dream

      he is a melon and a huge blade

      severs one half of him from the other.

      When he wakes, falling, he is two

      blackbirds with one wing each.

      THE BODY IN MOTION

      Is it true that things return

      when they are not the same,

      that they wait

      till recognition bends

      like water around a rock

      and we say, oh, it is almost you

      whom I touched in the blades

      of forest light

      naked as you were and have been

      always in that room in me where you live

      like clear water in a bowl.

      And you are not the same, yet

      here you are. Clearly the beautiful

      spirit clothed in time

      persists

      and I bow to that, smoothing

      its bright leaves and surrender,

      its wanting to be known.

      KANSAS

      A man is standing in a field

      at the edge of a town so small

      it sometimes forgets itself and goes home

      to its pale, lopsided houses and dry, СКАЧАТЬ