| From the top of the flight
|
| Of the wide, white stairs
|
| Through the rest of my life
|
| Do you wait for me there?
|
| There’s a bell in my ears
|
| There’s a wide white roar
|
| Drop a bell down the stairs
|
| Hear it fall forevermore
|
| Drop a bell off of the dock
|
| Blot it out in the sea
|
| Drowning mute as a rock;
|
| Sounding mutiny
|
| There’s a light in the wings, hits this system of strings
|
| From the side while they swing;
|
| See the wires, the wires, the wires
|
| And the articulation
|
| In our elbows and knees
|
| Makes us buckle as we couple in endless increase
|
| As the audience admires
|
| And the little white dove
|
| Made with love, made with love:
|
| Made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers
|
| Swings a low sickle arc
|
| From its perch in the dark:
|
| Settle down
|
| Settle down my desire
|
| And the moment I slept I was swept up in a terrible tremor
|
| Though no longer bereft, how I shook!
|
| And I couldn’t remember
|
| Then the furthermost shake drove a murdering stake in
|
| And cleft me right down through my center
|
| And I shouldn’t say so, but I know that it was then, or never
|
| Push me back into a tree
|
| Bind my buttons with salt
|
| Fill my long ears with bees
|
| Praying: please, please, please
|
| Love, you ought not!
|
| No you ought not!
|
| Then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings
|
| (cut from cardboard and old magazines)
|
| Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow
|
| And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood
|
| A cord or two, which you chop and you stack in your barrow
|
| It is terribly good to carry water and chop wood
|
| Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed
|
| As I crash through the rafters
|
| And the ropes and pulleys trail after
|
| And the holiest belfry burns sky-high
|
| Then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision
|
| While, somewhere, with your pliers and glue you make your first incision
|
| And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision
|
| Doubled over with the hunger of lions
|
| «hold me close,» cooed the dove
|
| Who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds
|
| I wanted to say: why the long face?
|
| Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face
|
| Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
|
| Sing: I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
|
| Just to lift your long face
|
| And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
|
| Your precious longface
|
| And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate
|
| — why the long face?
|
| And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
|
| — why the long face?
|
| In the trough of the waves
|
| Which are pawing like dogs
|
| Pitch we, pale-faced and grave
|
| As I write in my log
|
| Then I hear a noise from the hull
|
| Seven days out to sea
|
| And it is the damnable bell!
|
| And it tolls — well, I believe, that it tolls — for me!
|
| It tolls for me!
|
| Though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break
|
| Still, my dear, I would have walked you to the very edge of the water
|
| And they will recognise all the lines of your face
|
| In the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter
|
| Darling, we will be fine, but what was yours and mine
|
| Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes
|
| But if it’s all just the same, then will you say my name:
|
| Say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks?
|
| I wasn’t born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight
|
| No, I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
|
| So: enough of this terror
|
| We deserve to know light
|
| And grow evermore lighter and lighter
|
| You would have seen me through
|
| But I could not undo that desire
|
| Oh, desire…
|
| From the top of the flight
|
| Of the wide, white stairs
|
| Through the rest of my life
|
| Do you wait for me there? |