SENTENCES II

Last chapter, last verse—

                                 everything’s brown now in the golden field.

The threshing floor of the past is past.

The Overmountain men of the future

                                                         lie cusped in their little boxes.

The sun backs down, over the ridgeline, at 5 after 7.

The landscape puts on its black mask

                                                     and settles into its sleeplessness.

The fish will transpose it,

                                           half for themselves, half for the water

Ten thousand miles away, at the end of the darkening stream.

To live a pure life, to live a true life,

                                                         is to live the life of an insect.