30
Transitional Poem
A million selves and where disorder ruledStraddle a chaos and beget a world.
Peals of the New Year once for me came tumblingOut of the narrow night like clusters of humming-Birds loosed from a black bag, and rose againIrresponsibly to silence: but now I strainTo follow them and see for miles aroundMen square or shrug their shoulders at the sound.Then I remember the pure and granite hillsWhere first I caught an ideal tone that stills,Like the beloved's breath asleep, all dinOf earth at traffic: silence's first-born,Carrying over each sensual ravineTo inform the seer and uniform the seen.So from this ark, this closet of the brain,The dove emerges and flies back againWith a Messiah sprig of certitude—Promise of ground below the sprawling flood.
15
Desire is a witchAnd runs against the clock.It can unstitchThe decent hemWhere space tacks on to time:
