O Jesu parvule,

Nach dir ist mir so weh…

So this pickup group, these exiles and horny kids, sullen civilians called up in their middle age, men fattening despite their hunger, flatulent because of it, pre-ulcerous, hoarse, runny-nosed, red-eyed, sore-throated, piss-swollen men suffering from acute lower backs and all-day hangovers, wishing death on officers they truly hate, men you have seen on foot and smileless in the cities but forgot, men who don’t remember you either, knowing they ought to be grabbing a little sleep, not out here performing for strangers, give you this evensong, climaxing now with its rising fragment of some ancient scale, voices overlapping three- and fourfold, up, echoing, filling the entire hollow of the church—no counterfeit baby, no announcement of the Kingdom, not even a try at warming or lighting this terrible night, only, damn us, our scruffy obligatory little cry, our maximum reach outward—praise be to God!—for you to take back to your war-address, your war-identity, across the snow’s footprints and tire tracks finally to the path you must create by yourself, alone in the dark. Whether you want it or not, whatever seas you have crossed, the way home… .

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Paradoxical phase, when weak stimuli get strong responses… . When did it happen? A certain early stage of sleep: you had not heard the Mosquitoes and Lancasters tonight on route to Germany, their engines battering apart the sky, shaking and ripping it, for a full hour, a few puffs of winter cloud drifting below the steel-riveted underside of the night, vibrating with the constancy, the terror, of so many bombers outward bound. Your own form immobile, mouth-breathing, alone face-up on the narrow cot next to the wall so pictureless, chartless, mapless: so habitually blank… . Your feet pointed toward a high slit window at the far end of the room. Starlight, the steady sound of the bombers’ departure, icy air seeping in. The table littered with broken-spined books, scribbled columns headed Time / Stimulus / Secretion (30 sec) / Remarks, teacups, saucers, pencils, pens. You slept, you dreamed: thousands of feet above your face the steel bombers passed, wave after wave. It was indoors, some great place of assembly. Many people were gathered. In recent days, at certain hours, a round white light, quite intense, has gone sliding along and down in a straight line through the air. Here, suddenly, it appears again, its course linear as always, right to left. But this time it isn’t constant—instead it lights up brilliantly in short bursts or jangles. The apparition, this time, is taken by those present as a warning—something wrong, drastically wrong, with the day… . No one knew what the round light signified. A commission had been appointed, an investigation under way, the answer tantalizingly close—but now the light’s behavior has changed… . The assembly adjourns. On seeing the light jangling this way, you begin to wait for something terrible—not exactly an air raid but something close to that. You look quickly over at a clock. It’s six on the dot, hands perfectly straight up and down, and you understand that six is the hour of the appearance of the light. You walk out into the evening. It’s the street before your childhood home: stony, rutted and cracked, water shining in puddles. You set out to the left. (Usually in these dreams of home you prefer the landscape to the right—broad night-lawns, towered over by ancient walnut trees, a hill, a wooden fence, hollow-eyed horses in a field, a cemetery… . Your task, in these dreams, is often to pens. Often you go into the fallow field just below the graveyard, full of autumn brambles and rabbits, where the gypsies live. Sometimes you fly. But you can never rise above a certain height. You may feel yourself being slowed, coming inexorably to a halt: not the keen terror of falling, only an interdiction, from which there is no appeal… and as the landscape begins to dim out… you know… that…) But this evening, this six o’clock of the round light, you have set out leftward instead. With you is a girl identified as your wife, though you were never married, have never seen her before yet have known her for years. She doesn’t speak. It’s just after a rain. Everything glimmers, edges are extremely clear, illumination is low and very pure. Small clusters of white flowers peep out wherever you look. Everything blooms. You catch another glimpse of the round light, following its downward slant, a brief blink on and off. Despite the apparent freshness, recent rain, flower-life, the scene disturbs you. You try to pick up some fresh odor to correspond to what you see, but cannot. Everything is silent, odorless. Because of the light’s behavior something is going to happen, and you can only wait. The landscape shines. Wetness on the pavement. Settling a warm kind of hood around the back of your neck and shoulders, you are about to remark to your wife, “This is the most sinister time of evening.” But there’s a better word than “sinister.” You search for it. It is someone’s name. It waits behind the twilight, the clarity, the white flowers. There comes a light tapping at the door.