I consulted with myself about it
Praying for and laboring after an awakening sense
This ghost chose my head to do its thinking in
A kind of arcadia where the painter puts light
On the water perfectly despite the tremors
Of the always filling never full sea
Or salt and absence of the backward glance

§

A certain quality of light in the air visible
For a day or two when spring finally opens
I look backward and become the pillar of salt
Apology looks back through itself to see
A snake in the grass the color of the grass
Or the garden hose swallowed by what it feeds
This strange rite of wanting to say something simple

§

Only to find my own image out ahead of me singing
A brittle pastoral grows supple as it goes blank
Wind gone but the grass bends over still blown
As sweetness falls away from what is sweet
And ‘this’ becomes a word that forgets what follows
Delirious judgment separating shadows from shades
A poppy just now full-blown and memory all this