There was a time when stone was stone
And a face on the street was a finished face.
Between the Thing, myself and God alone
There was an instant symmetry.
Since you have altered all my world this trinity is twisted:
Stone is not stone
And faces like the fractioned characters in dreams are incomplete
Until in the child’s inchoate face
I recognize your exiled eyes.
The soldier climbs the glaring stair leaving your shadow.
Tonight, this torn room sleeps
Beneath the starlight bent by you.
[Mademoiselle, July 1957. Also recorded for M-G-M records under the title, ‘There Was a Time When Stone Was Stone’. An earlier version, called ‘Twisted Trinity’, appeared in Decision II, 1941.]