<www.glosszine.org>

	He said: I have been three times
        around the world and have, now, to allow
        some similar passage, only
        to follow old paths. Alone with the company
        of oneself. Such things become habit.
        And we become what we have dispossessed.


                        "But the sea was measured
                         and chained to the earth."


        Or closing a mountain
        on the sky, to look back and know:
        there will be those
        who follow, behind me. Already in unheard-of towns
        their eyes are coming open. They are taller,
        and their shoulders
        shove the sun
        inches higher; clouds roll
        on their outstretched arms. These are men
        with yellow eyes, men
        who admit no borders.
        Their rooms are filled with facts; their minds
        are as orderly as the spade-shaped spines
        of a pine cone, and the night is a picked bone.


        Where in the mornings of bleached-out fire
        a man steps outside
        himself and lonely, perfect,
        cries for the sorrow
        and sadness of that abandoned thing
        beside him.



                        "And the earth was measured
                         and chained to the sea."


        As for the air, it goes on
        about its business, gently gauging
        the space between things....


        He says: Yes, yes, we must
        set our love in repair;


        days stir
        in the fleshy hands of elms.
        There is really little else.


        All that is left, in fact,
        is a girl with a tear in her eye.
        All that is left is a man
        with words in a broken mouth.
        A gull that does not fly. Only you
        to understand this.