1 


The autumn shade is thin. Grey leaves lie faint 
Where they will lie, and, where the thick green was, 
Light stands up, like a presence, to the sky. 
The trees seem merely shadows of its age. 
From off the hill, I hear the logging crew, 
The furious and indifferent saw, the slow 
Response of heavy pine; and I recall 
That goddesses have died when their trees died. 
Often in summer, drinking from the spring, 
I sensed in its cool breath and in its voice 
A living form, darker than any shade 
And without feature, passionate, yet chill 
With lust to fix in ice the buoyant rim? 
Ancient of days, the mother of us all. 
Now, toward his destined passion there, the strong, 
Vivid young man, reluctant, may return 
From suffering in his own experience 
To lie down in the darkness. In this time, 
I stay in doors. I do my work. I sleep. 
Each morning, when I wake, I assent to wake. 
The shadow of my fist moves on this page, 
Though, even now, in the wood, beneath a bank, 
Coiled in the leaves and cooling rocks, the snake 
Does as it must, and sinks into the cold. 

2 


Nights grow colder. The Hunter and the Bear 
Follow their tranquil course outside my window. 
I feel the gentian waiting in the wood, 
Blossoms waxy and blue, and blue-green stems 
Of the amaryllis waiting in the garden. 
I know, as though I waited what they wait, 
The cold that fastens ice about the root, 
A heavenly form, the same in all its changes, 
Inimitable, terrible, and still, 
And beautiful as frost. Fire warms my room. 
Its light declares my books and pictures. Gently, 
A dead soprano sings Mozart and Bach. 
I drink bourbon, then go to bed, and sleep 
In the Promethean heat of summer?s essence. 

3 


Awakened by some fear, I watch the sky. 
Compelled as though by purposes they know, 
The stars, in their blue distance, still affirm 
The bond of heaven and earth, the ancient way. 
This old assurance haunts small creatures, dazed 
In icy mud, though cold may freeze them there 
And leave them as they are all summer long. 
I cannot sleep. Passion and consequence, 
The brutal given, and all I have desired 
Evade me, and the lucid majesty 
That warmed the dull barbarian to life. 
So I lie here, left with self-consciousness, 
Enemy whom I love but whom his change 
And his forgetfulness again compel, 
Impassioned, toward my lost indifference, 
Faithful, but to an absence. Who shares my bed? 
Who lies beside me, certain of his waking, 
Led sleeping, by his own dream, to the day? 

4 


If I ask you, angel, will you come and lead 
This ache to speech, or carry me, like a child, 
To riot? Ever young, you come of age 
Remote, a pledge of distances, this pang 
I notice at dusk, watching you subside 
From tree-tops and from fields. Mysterious self, 
Image of the fabulous alien, 
Even in sleep you summon me, even there, 
When, under his native tree, Odysseus hears 
His own incredible past and future, whispered 
By wisdom, but by wisdom in disguise. 

5 


Thinking of a bravura deed, a place 
Sacred to a divinity, an old 
Verse that seems new, I postulate a man 
Mastered by his own image of himself. 
Who is it says, I am? Sensuous angel, 
Vessel of nerve and blood, the impoverished heir 
Of an awareness other than his own? 
Not these, but one to come? For there he is, 
In a steel helmet, raging, fearing his death, 
Carrying bread and water to a quiet, 
Placing ten sounds together in one sound: 
Confirming his election, or merely still, 
Sleeping, or in a colloquy with the sun. 

6 


Snow and then rain. The roads are wet. A car 
Slips and strains in the mire, and I remember 
Driving in France: weapons-carriers and jeeps; 
Our clothes and bodies stiffened by mud; our minds 
Diverted from fear. We labor. Overhead, 
A plane, Berlin or Frankfurt, now New York. 
The car pulls clear. My neighbor smiles. He is old. 
Was this our wisdom, simply, in a chance, 
In danger, to be mastered by a task, 
Like groping round a chair, through a door, to bed? 

7 


A dormant season, and, under the dripping tree, 
Not sovereign, ordering nothing, letting the past 
Do with me as it will, I savor place 
And weather, air and sun. Though Hercules 
Confronts his nature in his deed, repeats 
His purposes, and is his will, intact, 
Magnificent, and memorable, I try 
The simplest forms of our old poverty. 
I seek no end appointed in my absence 
Beyond the silence I already share. 

8 


I drive home with the books that I will read. 
The streets are harsh with traffic. Where I once 
Played as a boy amid old stands of pine, 
Row after row of houses. Lined by the new 
Debris of wealth