Nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus

                                    – Livy

We are like strangers in the wild places. We watch

the deer swinging the intricate velvet from its antlers, never knowing

we are only as immense as what we shed in the dance.

The bride and bridegroom stand at the altar. Each thing

learned in mercy has as river in it. It holds the cargo

of a thousand crafts of fire that went down at evening.

We can neither endure our misfortunes nor face

the remedies needed to cure them. The fawns move

through the forest, and we move through the ruins of the dance.

Like Job, the mourner lays his head on the cold oak

of the table. His heart is a hundred calla lilies

under the muck of the river, opening before evening.

We think there is another shore. We stand with the new life

like a mooring rope across our shoulders, never guessing

that the staying is the freightage of the dance.

Orpheus turned to see his Eurydice gone. The Furies tore him

into pieces. The sun, he said, I will worship the sun.

But something in his ruin cried out for evening, evening, evening.

The wrens build at dusk. Friends, I love their moss-dressed

nests twisting in the pitch of the rafters, for they have taught me

that the ruins of the dance are the dance.

What if, after years

of trial,

a love should come

and lay a hand upon you

and say,

this late,

your life is not a crime

Now I let it fall back

in the grasses.

I hear you. I know

this life is hard now.

I know your days are precious

on this earth.

But what are you trying

to be free of?

The living? The miraculous

task of it?

Love is for the ones who love the work.

No, we are not going to die.

The sounds you hear

knocking the windows and chipping the paint

from the ceiling, that is a game

the world is playing.

Our task is to crouch in the dark as long as we can

and count the beats of our own hearts.

Good. Like that. Lay your hand

on my heart and I’ll lay mine on yours.

Which one of us wins

is the one who loves the game the most

while it lasts.

Yes, it is going to last.

You can use your ear instead of your hand.

Here, on my heart.

Why is it beating faster? For you. That’s all.

I always wanted you to be born

and so did the world.

No, those aren’t a stranger’s bootsteps in the house.

Yes, I’m here. We’re safe.

Remember chess? Remember

hide-and-seek?

The song your mother sang? Let’s sing that one.

She’s still with us, yes. But you have to sing

without making a sound. She’d like that.

No, those aren’t bootsteps.

Sing. Sing louder.

Those aren’t bootsteps.

Let me show you how I cried when you were born.

Those aren’t bootsteps.

Those aren’t sirens.

Those aren’t flames.

Close your eyes. Like chess. Like hide-and-seek.

When the game is done you get another life.

I, too, am tired of it. And yet, like an old love,

it comes to us, illuminating the bare walls

of our houses, catching its hems

on our thresholds, carrying its little cup of blossoms.

We are done with it.

Aren’t we done with it?

We have told ourselves

only grace can change us;

we have told ourselves

the craft is not the magic;

we have told ourselves

the myths are in our hands.

And yet, Issa wrote to us, and ever.

Let us walk out through the summer grass

and be there. Let us look up through the deepest leaves

and open. Let us wait, then,

while the ancient things

are woken, because haven’t

we always been lonely,

haven’t we looked up

into the wild skies

and asked, too, to be luminous

and ruined,

and risen like this cold stone in the darkness

and changed in it as radiantly as we can?

 

Tonight, as you walk out

into the stars, or the forest, or the city,

look up

as you must have looked

before love came,

before love went,

before ash was ash.

Look at them: the city’s

mists, the winters.

And the moon’s glass

you must have held once

in beginning.

That new moon

you must have touched once

in the waters,

saying change me, change

me, change me. All I want

is to be more of what I am.

 

Think of the moment before the moment.

Before recognition. Before the nurse saw

the boar’s scar coursing down his thigh

where the world had first entered him

in the forests of childhood. Before

Penelope. Before his battle for her heart.

Think of his moment alone on the beach,

his sailors running up to the village

where girls stood wringing spices

from their hair. Think of the gods saying to him

you do not have to praise ruin anymore;

you do not have to praise what is lost.

How you imagine him is how you enter things.

He is kneeling. Or he is weeping. Or he is turning

toward the sea again, thinking of the great deeds

of the hopeless. Think of him lifting the sands

and touching them to his tongue, to see

if it is real. If it is home. If it is time. Think of the moment

before he knew he had stepped out of the myths

and into his life. Whether that means to you

that he would sing, or mourn, or be lessened.

And his patience when he rose up again

and took himself the long way

toward his kingdom, not knowing

if it had all changed, or if love

had lasted, or if anything can last.

Think of him as though he were your life,

as though you had sat waiting at a loom

for long, dark years, weaving and unweaving

what you are. Think of your life returning to you

with eyes that had seen death. And whether

you would look away if you saw him

pausing a moment among the gardens

and the horses, listening to the song

of each thing, the common things he had forgotten.

Think of him hearing your voice again,

hiding his face in his hands

as he listened, hearing a music

of losses and joys, pestilence

and bounty, a beauty that had prepared

a place for him. And whether you would have him

be changed by that, or return

to what he was, or become

what he had come this way to become.