That This

Day is a type when visible
objects change then put

 

on form but the anti-type
That thing not shadowed

 

The way music is formed of
cloud and fire once actually

 

concrete now accidental as
half truth or as whole truth

 

Is light anything like this
stray pencil commonplace

 

copy as to one aberrant
onward-gliding mystery

 

A secular arietta variation
Grass angels perish in this

 

harmonic collision because
non-being cannot be 'this'

 

Not spirit not space finite
Not infinite to those fixed—

 

That this millstone as such
Quiet which side on which—

 

Is one mind put into another
in us unknown to ourselves
by going about among trees
and fields in moonlight or in
a garden to ease distance to
fetch home spiritual things

 

That a solitary person bears
witness to law in the ark to

 

an altar of snow and every
age or century for a day is

Credit

From That This, published by New Directions. Copyright © 2011 by Susan Howe. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.