詩歌欣賞A Purchase of Porcelain
Because the king
decrees that every Jew
must buy his wedding－right
in unsold porcelain
from the royal chinaworks，
here he stands， an amorous Jew，
gazing at luminous
suns and moons arrayed
on doths of velvet－blue，
earth that has married fire twice，
that has been shaped and named
for what it comprehends： sherbets， salads，
gravies， desserts． He lifts a platter fine
as alabaster in cathedral windows：
salvation， the passage of light
through bone． Ah， but
not for you， the store－man says．
Closeted， in shipping crates
are pieces no one else will buy
baboon fops in feathered caps，
chimpanzees in petticoats．
Visitors will later testify，
his home was comfortable，
despite the china apes
peering from every corner．
詩歌欣賞：Batuschka
From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel－blue Neva set，
I faintly catch， from time to time，
The sweet， aerial midnight chime——
"God save the Tsar！"
Above the ravelins and the moats
Of the white citadel it floats；
And men in dungeons far beneath
Listen， and pray， and gnash their teeth——
"God save the Tsar！"
The soft reiterations sweep
Across the horror of their sleep，
a term of endearment applied
to the Tsar in Russian folk－song．
As if some daemon in his glee
Were mocking at their misery——
"God save the Tsar！"
In his Red Palace over there，
Wakeful， he needs must hear the prayer．
How can it drown the broken cries
Wrung from his children's agonies?——
"God save the Tsar！"
Father they called him from of old——
Batuschka！ ． ． ． How his heart is cold！
Wait till a million scourged men
Rise in their awful might， and then——
God save the Tsar！
詩歌欣賞：Camma
Camma
（To Ellen Terry）
As one who poring on a Grecian urn
Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made，
God with slim goddess， goodly man with maid，
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day， must I not yearn
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss，
When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing， antique－limbed， and stern?
And yet － methinks I'd rather see thee play
That serpent of old Nile， whose witchery
Made Emperors drunken， － come， great Egypt， shake
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants！ Nay，
I am grown sick of unreal passions， make
The world thine Actium， me thine Anthony！
詩歌欣賞：A Prayer for My Son
Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound，
Nor cry， nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round；
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning‘s back，
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep．
Bid the ghost have sword in fist：
Some there are， for I avow
Such devilish things exist，
Who have planned his murder， for they know
Of some most haughty deed or thought
That waits upon his future days，
And would through hatred of the bays
Bring that to nought．
Though You can fashion everything
From nothing every day， and teach
The morning stars to sing，
You have lacked articulate speech
To tell Your simplest want， and known，
Wailing upon a woman‘s knee，
All of that worst ignominy
Of flesh and bone；
And when through all the town there ran
The servants of Your enemy，
A woman and a man，
Unless the Holy Writings lie，
Hurried through the smooth and rough
And through the fertile and waste，
Protecting， till the danger past，
With human love．
A Path Between Houses
Where is the dwelling place of light?
And where is the house of darkness?
Go about； walk the limits of the land．
Do you know a path between them?
Job 38：19－20
The enigma of August．
Season of dust and teenage arson．
The nightly whine of pickup trucks
bouncing through the sumac
beneath the Co－Operative power lines，
country & western booming from woofers
carved into the doors． A trace of smoke
when the wins shifts，
spun gravel rattling the fenders of cars，
the groan of clutch and transaxle，
pickup trucks， arriving at a friction point，
gunning from nowhere to nowhere．
The duets begin． A compact disc，
a single line of muted trumpet，
plays against the sirens
pursuing the smoke of grass fires．
I love a painter． On a new canvas，
she paints the neighbor's field．
She paints it without trees，
and paints the field beyond the field，
the field that has no trees，
and the upturned Jesus boat，
made into a planter，
"For God so loved the world． ． ．"
a citation from John， chapter and verse，
splattered across the bow
the boat spills roses into the weeds．
What does the stray dog know，
after a taste of what is holy?
The sun pulls her shadow toward me，
an undulant shape that shelters the grass，
an unaimed thing．
In the gray house， the tiny house，
in '52 there was a fire． The old woman，
drunk and smoking cigarettes， fell asleep．
The winter of the blizzard and her son
Not coming home from the Yalu．
There are times I still smell smoke．
There are days I know she set the fire
and why．
Last night， lightning to the south．
Here， nothing， though along the river
the wind upends a willow，
a gorgon of leaves and bottom－up clod
browning in the afternoon sun．
In the museum we dispute
the poet's epiphany call——
white light or more warmth?
And what is the Greek word for the flesh，
and the body apart from the spirit，
meaning even the body opposed to the spirit?
I do not know this word．
Dante claims there are pools of fire
in the middle regions of hell，
but the lowest circles are lakes of ice，
offering the hope our greatest sins
aren't the passions but indifference．
And the willow grew for years
With no real hold upon the ground．
How the accident occurred
and how the sky got dark：
Six miles from my house，
a drunk leaves the Holiday Inn
spins on 104 and smacks a utility pole．
The power line sparks
across the hood of his Ford
and illuminates the crazed spider web
of the windshield． His bloody tongue burns
with a slurry gospel． Around me，
the lights go down，
the way death is described
as armor crashing to the ground，
the soul having already departed
for another place． Was it his body I heard
leaning against the horn，
the body's final song， before the body
slumped sideways in the seat?
When I was a child，
I would wake at night
and imagine a field of asteroids， rolling
across the walls of my room．
In fact， I've seen them，
like the last herd of buffalo，
grazing against the background of fixed stars．
Plate 420 shows the asteroid 433 Eros，
the bright point of light， as it closes its approach
to light． I loose myself in Cygnus，
ancient kamikaze swan，
rising or diving to earth，
Draco， snarling at the polestar，
and Pegasus， stone horse of the gods，
ecstatic， looking one last time at home．
August and the enigma it is．
Days when I move in crabbed circles，
nights when I walk with Jesus through the fields．
What finally stands between us
and the world of flying things?
Mobbed by jays， the Cooper's hawk
drops the dead bird． It tumbles
beneath the cedar tree，
tiny acrobat of death，
a dead bird released
in a failed act of atonement．
A nest of wasps buzzing beneath the shingles，
flickers drilling the cottonwood，
jays， sparrows， the insistent wrens，
the language of birds， heads cocked，
staring the moon－eyed through the air．
Sedge， asters， and fleabane，
red tins of gasoline and glowing cigarettes，
the midnight voice of a fourteen－year－old girl
wailing the word "blue" from the pickup's open doors，
illuminated by the dome light，
the sulphurous rasp of another struck match，
and foxglove， goldenrod and chicory，
the dry flowers of late summer，
an exhaustion I no longer look at．
Time passes． The authorities
gather the wreckage， the whirr
of cicadas， and light dissembles the sky．
A wind shift， and the Cedar Creek fire
snaps the backfire line
and roars through the cemetery．
In the morning，
I walk a path between houses．
I cross to the water
and circle again， the redwings
forcing me back from the marsh．
Smoke rises from a fire
still smoldering along the power lines，
flaring and exhausting itself
in the shape of something lost．
Grass fires， fires through the scrub
of the clear－cut， fires in the pulpwood，
cemetery fires，
the powder of ash still untracked
beneath the enormous trees，
fires that explode the seed cones
on the pines， the smoke of set fires
and every good intention gone wrong，
scorching the monuments
above the graves of the dead．
詩歌欣賞：Bamboo Adobe
I sit along in the dark bamboo grove，
Playing the zither and whistling long．
In this deep wood no one would know
Only the bright moon comes to shine．
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