A Beauty

With pale pink fabric, with floral design

Her skirt clings to her; she cleans a counter-

I gasp, trace from ankle to perfect hip.

If I live through a thousand newborn springs,

I shall not again be so amazed by flowers.

Experience

I have seen no endless glaring deserts,

Nor witnessed avalanches that, falling,

Murder iced peaks and blanket a sharp slope

Like mothers that warm their wailing infants.

If by accident I accumulate

A great many years, I may yet set eyes

On the Temple of Athene in its ruins;

Join Byron in condemning Elgin’s Earl,

Offer my head to anvil for Her birth.

I may yet set eyes

On the ravages of my Empire’s wars;

Build clean wells or strong-walled schools, fly away

Before stone erodes and horror remains.

I may yet set eyes

On fields, no longer red, in Bretagne;

So many untouched trees and rolling hills

Belie spilled blood, bones that are now worms.

I may yet set eyes

On a field of my own, tilled by my hand;

My children run, they sprint to catch the wind,

I am afraid they will become heroes.

I may never be any of those men,

But today I brushed my lover’s hair in the sun.

Fragments 11

the god of thunder once rode on his horse after a battle

cursing the storm that matted his hair to his head

and, beside him, his treacherous relative, bane of the world,

laughed quietly into the curve of his left hand with twisted lips

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because I have become old enough to die, I worry not:

the man fated to die of thirst can fear no wall of flame

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I know a woman with children and sadness.

She pretends but all pretenses are exhausting.

She is nearly alone again but children remain

and so she cannot indulge her despair.

I mean to relate to her a humorous occurrence of an earlier day,

but I forget the details.

Carmen 40

Shall I tell you of your face in the leaves,

As if you do not own your illusions?

Pray, whisper of how you are still surprised

When glass is broken and mirages fail.