Down the driveway, standing on the Russell Farm Road,
nothing but stars over my neighbor’s field
and over my neighbor’s house which crouches
under them with its lit windows,
cozy and distant as a research station.
Between the bare branches left hanging
like threads on cut shirt sleeves, stars tingle,
whole galaxies for the leaves that now fill ditches.
And down the road towards the impoundment lot
stars fill the river that cuts the trees’ black banks.

I stand in my work coat, dizzy with nicotine,
straining my head back like a boy drinking rain
to see more of them, star behind star,
rich milk of stars, ripe fruit of stars,
cast jewels, lit snowflakes, cityscapes of stars
through every window the night has thrown open,
through every perforation in the woods,
and step on the cigarette I’ve dropped in the road,
nothing but stars, stars falling away forever
beneath the veneer of dark that supports my feet.

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky; 
He climbed for it, 
And eventually he achieved it—
It was clay. 

Now this is the strange part: 
When the man went to the earth 
And looked again, 
Lo, there was the ball of gold. 
Now this is the strange part: 
It was a ball of gold. 
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

’Tis the witching time of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the Stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen.
For what listen they?
For a song and for a charm,
See they glisten in alarm,
And the Moon is waxing warm
To hear what I shall say.
Moon! keep wide thy golden ears—
Hearken, Stars! and hearken, Spheres!—
Hearken, thou eternal Sky!
I sing an infant’s Lullaby,
O pretty lullaby!
Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my Lullaby!
Though the Rushes, that will make
Its cradle, still are in the lake—
Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree—
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep—
Listen, Starlight, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!
Child, I see thee! Child, I’ve found thee
Midst of the quiet all around thee!
Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee
And thy mother sweet is nigh thee!
Child, I know thee! Child no more,
But a Poet evermore!
See, see the Lyre, the Lyre,
In a flame of fire,
Upon the little cradle’s top
Flaring, flaring, flaring,
Past the eyesight’s bearing.
Awake it from its sleep,
And see if it can keep
Its eyes upon the blaze—
Amaze, amaze!
It stares, it stares, it stares,
It dares what no one dares!
It lifts its little hand into the flame
Unharm’d, and on the strings
Paddles a little tune, and sings,
With dumb endeavor sweetly—
Bard art thou completely!
          Little child
          O’ th’ western wild,
Bard art thou completely!
Sweetly with dumb endeavor.
A poet now or never,
          Little child
          O’ th’ western wild,
A Poet now or never!

Folks would talk about it,
and even after I lived
in that mountain town
months, a year, even after
getting close with the girl
from the pharmacy,
guys from the woods, I did
not know.

I waited to somehow divine
what it was. Be invited. Still
I imagine a great expanse,
a meadow, high above the town,
of tiny flowers, like lovers
on their backs, looking up.

If there was ever a chance to go to outer space,
     it wasn’t here & it wasn’t for me, as off balance
on this distant planet as a buster getting a mouthful
     of knuckles. If there was a possibility of making it
out of this heliosphere, there never really was.
     Four eyes giggling at me like a laugh track. Black
skin, you can’t win in the space race no matter
     what Sun Ra says. Everyone except him agreeing
on these facts like a laugh track. Looking up through
     the round circumstance of a basketball hoop from
a suburb of amateur astronauts. Looking up from this
     corner of black constriction & wind knocked out
of words. This cricket-ticking suburb of fanciful
     neighbors & their distant, but unrelenting chatter.

A dark sail,
Like a wild-goose wing,
Where the sunset was.
The moon soon will silver its sinewy flight
Thro the night watches,
And the far flight
Of those immortal migrants,
The ever-returning stars.

Count o’er the million leagues from here to yonder star.
On then. On to the next count of a million more.
Sum up the myriad gleams that light the night;
Add too, the orbit where the cold bright moon doth soar.
That done, return to earth and with thy mind outline
That huge expanse called space; and then out from our Hearse
Of changing dust dream out the words—The Universe.

the moon might rise and it might not
and if it brings a ghost light we will read beneath it

and if it returns to earth
we will listen for its phrases

and if I’m alone at the bedside table
I will have a ghost book to refer to

and when I lie back I’ll see its imprint
beneath my blood-red lids:

not lettered ink
but the clean page

not sugar
but the empty bowl

not flowers
but the dirt

*

blame the egg blame the fractured stones
at the bottom of the mind

blame his darkblue glare and craggy mug
the bulky king of trudge and stein

how I love a masculine in my parlor
his grizzly shout and weight one hundred drums

in this everywhere of blunt and soft sinking
I am the heavy hollow snared

the days are spring the days are summer
the days are nothing and not dead yet

*

worry the river over its banks
the train into flames

worry the black rain into the city
the troops into times square

worry the windows cracked acidblack
and the children feverblistered

worry never another summer
never again to live here gentle
with the other inhabitants

then leave too quickly
leave the pills and band-aids
the bathroom scale the Christmas lights the dog

go walking on our legs
dense and bare and useless

worry our throats and lungs
into taking the air

leave books on the shelves
leave keys dustpan

telephones don’t work where you were
in the chaos

*

and I couldn’t bear it
the children nearing the place
where the waves wet the shore

vaporous force
rising imperceptibly behind

we were talking about circumstance
horizon-gates swinging open
beneath the cherry blooms

wave rising in the background
impalpable and final
a girl in a white dress       barefoot

wasn’t I right to ask her to move in from the shore

*

this is the last usable hour

bird lured
through the window

a little sweet fruit

I could die here
and the hearsedriver
would take me out of this city

I’d say my name to him
as we crossed the Triboro

I’d say it softly         the way he likes it

it would be the last time
I’d introduce myself that way

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

That night
   the comet could still be seen,
   wound in its wild mane.

Earlier, an egret
   had stopped by the stream
   to clean itself of something,
   red bill dipping
   again and again
   into the white feathers.

And before that,
   walking along,
   we became aware
   of a tiny, fragile skeleton
   at the side of the road,
   paws drawn up
   over its empty chest.

And the robin flew
Into the air, the air,
The white mist through;
And small and rare
The night-frost fell
Into the calm and misty dell.

And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the hooded briers.

And the sprawling Bear
Growled deep in the sky;
And Orion's hair
Streamed sparkling by:
But the North sighed low,
"Snow, snow, more snow!"

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.