I know it to be true that those who live
As do the grasses and the lilies of the field
Receiving joy from Heaven, sweetly yield
Their joy to Earth, and taking Beauty, give.

But we are gathered for the looms of Fate
That Time with ever-turning multiplying wheels
Spins into complex patterns and conceals
His huge invention with forms intricate.

Each generation blindly fills the plan,
A sorry muddle or an inspiration of God
With many processes from out the sod,
The Earth and Heaven are mingled and made man.

We must be tired and sleepless, gaily sad,
Frothing like waves in clamorous confusion,
A chemistry of subtle interfusion,
Experiments of genius that the ignorant call mad.

We spell the crimes of our unruly days,
We see a fabled Arcady in our mind,
We crave perfection that we may not find.
Time laughs within the clock and Destiny plays.

You peasants and you hermits simple livers!
So picturesquely pure all unconcerned
While we give up our bodies to be burned,
And dredge for treasure in the muddy rivers.

We drink and die and sell ourselves for power,
We hunt with treacherous steps and stealthy knife,
We make a gaudy havoc of our life
And live a thousand ages in an hour.

Our loves are spoilt by introspective guile,
We vivisect our souls with elaborate tools,
We dance in couples to the tune of fools,
And dream of harassed continents the while.

Subconscious visions hold us and we fashion
Delirious verses tortured statues spasms of paint,
Make cryptic perorations of complaint,
Inverted religion and perverted passion.

But since we are children of this age,
In curious ways discovering salvation,
I will not quit my muddled generation,
But ever plead for Beauty in this rage.

Although I know that Nature’s bounty yields
Unto simplicity a beautiful content,
Only when battle breaks me and my strength is spent
Will I give back my body to the fields.

I walk the world with a locked box
Lodged in my chest. Doctor, it hurts
But not as much as it should. In Bucha,

On the roadway of the Street of Apples
A woman lay four weeks straight
Unburied even by snow. They saw her red

Coat and rolled right over, Russians,
Tanked and vigilant in their to and fro. 
Doctor, there’s nothing wrong with me

That isn’t also true of many others. 
At night I sleep under a vast epiphany
That hasn’t descended upon me,

Pinpricks that shine a white writing 
I can’t read. I don’t want to know 
Yet. Instead I ask to stay here, greedy 

For the smell of autumn. Before 
Leaving, I’ve made a miniature of me
To witness the raising of the sea, 

To watch over the unimaginable,
To greet this revelation of a future 
With those new names it will need.  

Green, and green, and suddenly 
            a light trapped in a soft shell.  
                       Above the city of Jericho, 

the chickens are coming home 
            to roost. I rewrite history  
                       and keep the apple where no hand 

can reach it. Sinai because 
            your breath is fear. Pisgah  
                       because your touch is hurt.

I am scared of all that I am  
            capable of. To break a body  
                       is to know it  

for what it truly is. You say this  
            is love, so I surrender my wants  
                       at your feet. To know a body 

is to break it wide open, and I have grown  
            to love everything about nothing.  
                       Out in the wilderness, 

the guard dog is eating a thunderstorm  
            and the night’s skin is an eye  
                       sore. Damn the consequences. 

I trace the lone graph of my body  
            and study its careful intricacies. Then,  
                       like you, I lift the nothingness of me 

above my head and tip it over  
            the blade of rocks. I do not want to bury anything 
                       I do not want to bury.