LAIR

Inexhaustible, delicate, as if

Without source or medium, daylight

Undoes the mind; the infinite,

Empty actual is too bright,

Scattering to where the road

Whispers, through a mile of woods …

Later, how quiet the house is:

Dusk-like and refined,

The sweet Phoebe-note

Piercing from the trees;

The calm globe of the morning,

Things to read or to write

Ranged on a table: the brain

A dark, stubborn current that breathes

Blood, a deaf wadding,

The hands feeding it paper

And sensations of wood or metal

On its own terms. Trying to read

I persist awhile, finish the recognition

By my breath of a dead giant’s breath—

Stayed by the space of a rhythm,

Witnessing the blue gulf of the air.