Degree: Of Stability

to v. shalamov

You yourself are already visited by something like skyglow:

and the image perhaps

has become real for all:

independent of all:

is this not the unseen flame of poverty

in the noiseless wind:

of the shortlived features? –

or possibility of the perilous   it is:

in faces illumined –

as if waiting

to be opened:

like those who guard something? –

or – with un-clear incandescence (as if staring with a kind of vision of unhurried illness):

everywhere – unseen – illuminating all:

the ultimate   it

of the Fire-Word:

which long ago seized

the very places of our thoughts? –

has it everywhere as in a noiseless wind:

without word without spirit:

itself come into being?

1967