who once you knew, the one you were then, a little frisson of recognition,
and then just like that—gone, and no one for hours, a sound you thought you heard
but in the waking darkness is not heard again, two sharp knocks on the door, death
it was, you said, but now nothing, the islands, places you have been, the sea the uncertain,
full of ghosts calling out, lost as they are, no one you knew in your life, the moon above
the whole of it, like the light at the bottom of a well opening in iced air
where you have gone under and come back, light, no longer tethered
to your own past, and were it not for the weather of trance, of haze and murk, you could see
everything at once: all the islands, every moment you have lived or place you have been,
without confusion or bafflement, and you would be one person. You would be one person again.
WHAT COMES
J’ai rapporté du désespoir un panier si petit, mon amour, qu’on a pu le tresser en osier.
I brought from despair a basket so small, my love, that it might have been woven of willow.
RENÉ CHAR
to speak is not yet to have spoken,
the not-yet of a white realm of nothing left
neither for itself nor another
a no-longer already there, along with the arrival of what has been
light and the reverse of light
terror as walking blind along the breaking sea, body in whom I lived
the not-yet of death darkening what it briefly illuminates
an unknown place as between languages
back and forth, breath to breath as a calm
in the surround rises, fireflies in lindens, an ache of pine
you have yourself within you
yourself, you have her, and there is nothing
that cannot be seen
open then to the coming of what comes
DEDICATIONS AND NOTES
The title of this collection is from Robert Duncan’s poem “Poetry, a Natural Thing.”
“Museum of Stones” is in memory of Hugh Anthony Sloan, 1953–2007.
“Exile,” “Fisherman,” and “For Ilya at Tsarskoye Selo” are for Ilya Kaminsky.
“The Lost Suitcase,” “Last Bridge,” and “Elegy for an Unknown Poet” are in memory of Daniel Simko, 1959–2004, poet and translator of Georg Trakl.
“The Refuge of Art” is for Ashley Ashford-Brown.
“A Room” is in memory of Robert Creeley, who gave us the glass cubes. Chapter titles are from David Hume.
“The Ghost of Heaven” and “Ashes to Guazapa” are in memory of Leonel Gómez, 1939–2009.
“Hue: From a Notebook” is for Kevin Bowen, Bruce Weigl, Nguyen Ba Chung, and Larry Heinemann.
“A Bridge”: A bothy is a ruined hut restored for use by trekkers and fishermen.
“The End of Something” is for Lise Goett.
“Lost Poem” is for Lars Gustaf Andersson.
“Theologos”: Archilochus was a Greek lyric poet from the island of Paros, 680–645 BC. This poem is for Stamatis Kouzis of Thassos.
“Toward the End” is for Eryk Hanut.
“What Comes” is for Barbara Cully.