The one-eyed mollusc on the sea-bottom, feathered and luminous, is my equal in what he and I know of star clusters not yet found by the best of star-gazers.

* * *

The earth is a forgotten cinder.

A heaving fireball cooled off.

Thus the story of the rocks.

Each river came later than the cooling.

Next comes the freezing of the globe.

A heaving iceball will travel alone.

The rivers will be too cold to move.

Each flowering valley will be a memory.

The autobiography of a wild rose will run:

My leaves pressed between the times

of a fireball and an iceball.

* * *

I have been woven among meshes of long ropes

and fine filaments: older than the rocks and

fresh as the dawn of this morning today are

the everliving roots who begot me,

who poured me as one more seeker

one more swimmer in the gold and gray procession

of phantoms laughing, fighting, singing, moan-

ing toward the great cool calm of the fixed

return to the filaments of dust.

I am more than a traveler out of Nowhere.

Sea and land, sky and air, begot me Somewhere.

Where I go from here and now, or if I go at all

again, the Maker of sea and land, of sky and

air, can tell.

* * *

There is only one horse on the earth

and his name is All Horses.

There is only one bird in the air

and his name is All Wings.

There is only one fish in the sea

and his name is All Fins.

There is only one man in the world

and his name is All Men.

There is only one woman in the world

and her name is All Women.

There is only one child in the world

and the child’s name is All Children.

There is only one Maker in the world

and His children cover the earth

and they are named All God’s Children.

Musings

We have watched The Poet at his window, lounging deep in his chair, his powerful hands knotted, his dark, rugged face locked in a solemn dream. The poems, themselves, have been on exhibition at various stages: as pencilled yellow slips, as clean sheets retyped for the printer, as long rolls of galley-proofs.

— HENRY JUSTIN SMITH, from Deadlines

Chicago Poet

I saluted a nobody.

I saw him in a looking-glass.

He smiled—so did I.

He crumpled the skin on his forehead,

frowning—so did I.

Everything I did he did.

I said, “Hello, I know you.”

And I was a liar to say so.

Ah, this looking-glass man!

Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor,

Soldier, dusty drinker of dust—

Ah! he will go with me

Down the dark stairway

When nobody else is looking,

When everybody else is gone.

He locks his elbow in mine,

I lose all—but not him.

Phizzog

This face you got,

This here phizzog you carry around,

You never picked it out for yourself,

at all, at all—did you?