I will think of water-lilies

Growing in a darkened pool,

And my breath shall move like water,

And my hands be limp and cool.

It shall be as though I waited

In a wooden place alone;

I will learn the peace of lilies

And will take it for my own.

If a twinge of thought, if yearning

Come like wind into this place,

I will bear it like the shadow

Of a leaf across my face.

              I swim down to 

              look for our four-

              chambered house.

                            The window

              in our room still leaf-

              darkened, its bruiselight

              charged with fault. 

Am I very lonely? 

             I age in reverse until I am as

             small as my child

             body, my chest swollen

             with bright longing

             that the walls will not always

             greet each other 

                           in collapse—

The lord is kind.

             The underworld is lit by half

                          -moon as if to say, none

                          of this is evidence,

                          only decay.

             In the drift, this wreck still looks like a life:

             everything still hanging is relieved

             of its weight like an archer’s arrow

                           suspended in rags 

                           of snow.

             I hunt the me

             that made this heavenless night,

             my young fear circling your

             false beacon, its low

             stars and difficult earth stacked

             immense against

             every fact—

I should be funnier here:

                            Underwater, iron sinks

                                                                            weightless as       

               a kite 

                                     plummeting 

                      through peaks.