I walked with my traveler through a long system of valleys
at the end of summer
under a non-moon. Crowns
of periwinkle. Mint. Dusty laurel. The scent
of the nearly finished, about to become—
And those tiny loud berries were hardest at the end of summer
coming forward to be finished
—not having enough existence to be ripe
(yet full of crimson crimson hope)—
the white blossoms that would not fruit
were powdery at the center,
moon-powdery like the sixties, and the blossoms
came forward as trapped light.
What is the uncertain part that wants to be finished by another
What little uncertain part comes forth in thorns
each thorn hooking back to not
being a cardinal’s crest
What uncertain part comes forth in thorns
(Some moths with old-lady-curtain-wings flew by)
And I loved my traveler but I feared his bright edges
the manner in which he
, looked off to the side. At mother nature.
Loved my traveler quite a lot
though he carried the past on his back—her blond changes—
and seemed at ease while I was keeping watch,
(split and puzzled and keeping watch)
he seemed at home in this bright accident,
so what was my almost compared to his being there,
my half-darkness compared to his complete light,
my local compared to his everywhere
and what was I Was I. (Was I)
The notion of fate pulling us sideways
Fate which traps light in the alders
Causes the vast fluttering of the supposed-to-be-there
Fate which turns young ladies into trees
and put the plague of the oak moths up that year
I loved him so outside myself I didn’t fear, for several minutes!
(moths with ragged curtain wings flew by)
And the little identity owl said Fool, Fool
The archbishop of couldn’t said Why, Why,
Some little nightingale-type-thing said
How previous of you
—moths with mended curtain wings flew by.
I had some boxes of noon I carried around inside
a little lit room sealed up by several dawns
I’d been reading some books on female identity
but who was I (Was I)
Had received the gifts of the new privacy
like women of my decade
Had absorbed the freckled glow of the moon in detail
But what was my little lit room
Compared to his little lit room
My sometime compared to his every single time
What were my shelves on female identity
And what was I (was I)
The problem of falling in love in this century.
The problem of it not being
natural anymore. No no not that they said no more
popular yearning. You must be in relation
to him something finished.
But I saw nature looked completely unfinished
Ellipsis and : : : of the cicadas
Half of an owl (maybe only one wing). Mostly
things had been omitted.
in the Katharine Hepburn pines.
What is the part that wants to be matched by another
What part wants to be seen clear through
Doesn’t want nature as the mother exactly
or wants the dark rising
colorless cobra female, the end
We walked through night till night was the poem
Night after night I felt three necessary valleys between his knuckles
Night after night, his hand stayed in my hand
An osprey stood by its possible nest.
It looked like an ace of spades standing there
sleeping. Backlit. Its neck in its pocket.
Sprigs of slightly shabby sticks it had arranged
after a casual tour of oceans.
And we loved that dark bird together,
it brooded, looking the very dawn at us,
its grief cry tucked in, for later use,
now only the gutteral R of high school French
to put itself to sleep
but so much pure creation packed around its lucky nest,
a slight, then a vast, vast fluttering;
and we loved that dark bird, together we were the bird,
he loved the center of what had already happened
and I loved what it was becoming—
so the future stretched before us as a series
of perceptions
and I saw how loving a thing beside him
I might become extra
not so less, not so unnumbered,
that loving a thing beside him I might become two—