To return, the heat high and stifling, the crow high up in the quiet,

The silence of night awake inside the silence of day—and oh, yes,

It is carried, night a little creature carried by the day, day’s child,

A disfigured creature, and then night grown full, and day carried,

A beautiful creature, night’s child, a white mewling thing

Like a rose—and then the pale man on the rocks climbed to his feet

And stood for a moment, the way the man above him stood,

And he did something like a little dance, assuming one still

Pose after another, his muscles tight as stones, and the light

Around him laughing ha ha ha ha ha ha, not in amusement

But in deep pleasure, the crow laughing ha ha ha ha ha ha,

And the handsome cypresses spinning like dreidels....Things

Will be fed on. The rose is fed on by blight, a white ghost,

And by beetles, tiny green stones, and the calf dead for a week

Behind the far wall is fed on by vultures, and the bending stone

Statue is fed on by the rain and the wind—they vie for his eyes,

His fruit—and the man dances for this, for the devouring.

Does a cat walk by? Yes, a black cat walks by, delicate, precise,

And the crow laughs ha ha ha ha ha ha. And now the man’s time

Is up. The figure on the pillar breathes in and draws back

To his stone state, and the man below sits down and struggles

To pull on the suit of rag and bone, the man growing smaller

As the suit grows larger, the dog’s mouth at last closing over

The crown of the man’s head, and the poor dog laboring

To her feet, and beginning again her slow walk, up and on,

In and out of the shadows, her head swinging from side to side,

As if she were divining for water. She will walk all the way

Around the world, until she comes back to the circle of stone,

And the dance is repeated. Again and again, she will do this,

Until the game is over, and on some days, when the heat

Is a ghastly flower, someone may, for a moment, see her.

The Rain’s Consort

So, the lion, so his stiff wings, so the black moss that stains

Both his mouth and his wings, moss the color of fruit blood,

Or of pity, pity for the self that labors and labors

And spins only the wind, bride of the wind, oh foolish one.

So, the lion on the post, half-buried in lilacs, and below him

The small retaining pond filled with black water so thick

And still it cannot reflect the lion submerged in lilacs,

Nor the three stone cupids who poke him with their horns

And their harps, mean as vexing sparrows, bright

As low born sparrows, lilacs the color of figs or sparrows,