Butterflies kiss the sage, where sun drips off primrose
into mute lilly horns who know but cannot say
this is the day. In yonder Sycamore, a cardinal's question
is answered from afar: this is the day. Sleep no more,
fields of green; arise and be heard, all who dwell within.
The night has been, has poured out all its darkness like water
onto parched earth that cannot be gathered up again.

When with eyes as good as closed we peered into the night
what stain had we beheld? Was it ink upon our canvass,
dripping from the trees, running on the lawns and fields,
the gardens deep in slumber, staining dark foreboding hills?
"Be Thou," we cried, "a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our eyes."
What then should we have seen who could not see,
or known who could not know, what has once been made,
once beheld, once loved, what was once our own continues still?

This is the day, let all who have a sound to make proclaim.
From among the pines, from within the thickets come. Let each one
make his song. This is the day. We shall not sleep therein.
Arrogant and proud the night, let all the living cry. Profound
the darkness. Grave the depth of night, become a dew
for unction of the lillies who know but cannot say this:
this is the day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

It is not so far as it might seem to ocean.
A difference of hours, a difference of miles and I am here
and the great water is there. This place needs me
but my soul has gone to sea. Jagged opened window envelopes
lay stretched upon the table but the gulls cries
echo in infinite space. On the back of one
I make my calculations but the breaker's sweep
soon erases the march of men on temporary earth.
My tiny scratchings, smaller than a child's cough in the dead
of night amount to less than a hundred thousand lives
lost as one to the deep. Hardship is a lonely craft,
so says the desperate cloth of ages strung
against the wind. I bear my fears while sinew plies
the rope of providence. This the work of ordinary men
while the tempest looms on a dark horizon.
Tomorrow I will make my way, but my soul looks back
and sees this coast no more.

The houses of my Babylon lean upon each other.
They will not fall, not until the last hard hand
quits the last hammer, not until misfortune
loses prey, not until the least last child
is gently packed in wool and sent to play.
Sooner will you hear their see-saw hinges wail.
Will you then ask of them a song of home?

The windows of the houses of my Babylon
lay bare the walls around them. Who but gray
grandfathers marking time press their noses
to the glass? The visions of their lonely vigils
fade, half life unrecorded, shadows on parade,
whispered secrets kept secret.You will never know
with what intent they overlook your passing through.

Rain tears on the windows of the houses
of my Babylon, the bath of unattended panes
dropped free from heaven. They will not wash
clear. They will ever wear the haze of tainted air.
You think this stain the mark of unrepentant sin.
Who, then, gives the absolution of so many
brown-burned fingers that will not scrub up?

Quietly the shadows grew one into another as the day withdrew
softly from the hollows of the trees until at last it stood
far away. Then the night crept up the lawns and rested
on the porches and peered into the windows.

The night came through the screens with the easy summer breeze
and made us idle with its foreign song, chords of gray,
melancholy dissonance, its song that makes an end of songs.
Then we wanted nothing of the stuff of life however dear.

Yes it pried the pens and hammers from our hands and wrought
with them nothing. It took our many conquests and made
one of them, shared by great and small that one ambition -
sleep. We were turned like strings around our newel posts.

We climbed the stairs and darkness followed, and darkness waited
while we bared and darkness swallowed our last light.
We lost possession of our world tonight, sold it for a song,
rid of it as long as we could sleep.

You have to want to find tenderness on Main Street.
She does not advertise her location the way the merchants do,
but more like hides behind locked doors as though wary
of tough customers, and peeks through parted curtains.
When she steps out she wears the dress of poverty
in the manner of one come to harm before, the better
to be thought of no worth. She affects empty eyes, tightly
drawn lips, gritted teeth, the face of those who chase
a buck like a rush hour bus pulling from the curb.
She would pass for the common fare of Main Street.

If you are kin to me, you will some days want that street
American, making straight for places wide open
with barely time for a syllable and more to do than say.
Too, some days, you will shudder at the shadow of it.
You will not fall in line at the corner. You will lose time
to lean at the blind man's wall and wish you could see
what you see. How have you gone so long without
tenderness? What has become of her since she last gentled
you whiles ago? By whom but her could you be touched?
You have to want to find tenderness on Main Street.

How many drops of rain fell on the waiting, wrinkled face
of the knob? Angels came to tally, their busy whispers hushing
all lesser voices, the owners vying for an out of the way limb
or leaf or comb of grass where they might sit patiently by.

In his study, Percival made his notes, who had torn the veil
of heaven with a glass and reached within to capture Mars.
There he saw the dying of its rivers and the highways of a kind
gone to rock for lack of water in a desolate sea of stars.

As each spirit in his sector gave number to the spills,
each in secret, whispy tongue reporting to the chief of them
who made a careful strophe on hidden parchment for each count,
not one creature present challenged this was truly holy work.

Civilization must be wizened to its peril, this the man recorded. 
Thus would mankind come of age, in the stirring of the dust
of other worlds and in the comity of foreign circles.
There would we see a form of us gone beyond our limitations.

When at length the measure tipped from abundance measured full
the quantity ordained, the chief scribe raised his quill, and all
stood still. For that while labor come to term contented every form
of life and angels praised by silence the wisdom of their holy orders.

By knowledge came responsibility. It was his to tell what must be told
fearlessly. Galileo's world is round, and there is life on Mars
soon one day becoming ours with new reason. This, men of vision,
long humbled by the old, weary search for proof would learn to see.

Faithful to their hidden agenda at last the unseen hands left
that climb. In their ensuing revelry, no witness sought their course
or questioned their accounting of the rain.

When once we slept and rose again to take our  play
we found the grassy fields of summer occupied
by others, fleet and fair and younger still than we
and wholly unaware they ran where we were bound.

I said to you and you to me, "It's done, all that
can be." And yet we lingered, didn't we, to watch
those bold trespassers at their art, to try
their speed in our imaginations, test their skill.

We stood aside, intruders now ourselves, left out
to witness daylight leak away. What more to do?
Could we command those sons of skill to stay their games
while we made sport in our more awkward, breathless way?

At length we left those sports, albeit slowly, not
without regret but sure another day would come.
Another day would find us early in the fields,
alone and hardy, just as we had always been.

My small lot under snow like a blank sheet of paper
invited a mark. I have never been able to
leave such a space undisturbed. So forgetting
the cold and forsaking all shelter I walked through the yard.

My steps clumsy and aimless, I wandered the ground
too soon crossed to its boundary. Woe in the creaks
of the maple stood there was made peaceful somehow
by the dusting, the chill of its nakedness made somehow warm.

Now adorned in white lightly, long suffering winter,
the old wood detained me. My hand found its back,
my touch meant to console for or ask of or share in
adversity weathered. I searched its scarred crust for a sign.

Still its limbs reached away toward the source of its hardship
in private communion and I was alone
with the cold breath, the silence, the works of that season.
The coat serendipity gave me to wear was too thin.

Though I turned up its collar I shivered inside
and for that looked away where the proof of my ambling
made light of the elements real to me now.
Was it weakness, I wonder, or wisdom I left at the tree.

Gray on gray shadow falls on shadow
where I stand, forty floors below the
sun. I strain upward where the birds but
seldom fly where in sheers of wind not
kind to wing window looks on window.
Fingers joined hands on brow I plead for
vision, what eye can see concealed by
height from those not high. I cannot
make it out. Moses' arms may not have
tired but mine do, and eyes too tire of
looking up. I am bound to sidewalked,
peopled, street leveled, common ways and
not to high stations. Buffets dealt by
passers-by goad me on, and concrete
paths conduct me beneath the towers.  

The bloom of the cut rose
leaks into the water glass.
She fixes breakfast.
I sit thereabouts waiting.
I trouble my coffee with a spoon.
Her slippers scuff softly at the floor.
Her dreaming slowly leaves her eyes.
I rub my homely morning face.
The finger of a tree taps the glass.
It will not be admitted
with the pale, newborn light.
The world already goes its way.
It minds if we are slow to follow.
The street grumbles at my well used robe.
Matins bells predict a running out.
We keep our peace
longer than we should.

I am sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon looking in
through the gray above the green hanging over the black shingle roof
of the room where I am sitting.
I can't see me resting here.

The streets of my youth are out my window
through a hole in the trees in the still Autumn night.
I must rise to the call of the bread truck man,
to the whinny of the rag picker's horse,
to the distant clanking of a slow freight train.

So far away on the stone faced moon,
how long my ears have thirsted
to drink the sounds they cannot drink again,
to sponge the voices from the streets of my youth
and squeeze them back a drop at a time.

Sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon,
I can see the globe rolling cars upon it.
Outside my window into Autumn is
the incessant din of transportation,
the percussion of outbound movement
toward the stone faced moon where I sit.

Tarry with me here.
Dangle by the pond
like fruit of vine near season's end.
No pain's too heavy to suspend
a while; no love so ripe to send
it down before the season's end.

When this time is gone,
I am but a road
with destinations picked by those
who use it. You are but a rose
beheld by them. This time will close
and we will go the way time goes.

Tarry with me here.
Drift beside the pond
like leaves afloat in Autumn air,
like birds, like things that share
the wind. No sorrow, pain, no care
can rise with them in Autumn air.

When this time is gone
I am but a house
to be resided in by those
who own it. You are but the bows
bedecking them. This time will close
and we will go the way time goes.

I'll sing the song so long and low
in street blue light and back shadow
the cold cement which gapes to brick
will warm for me, in carpets thick
the foot worn floors will bathe, and kind
will be cruel winds from far horizons.

I'll sing the song so high and sweet
from street side stage to bus stop seat,
the deaf of engines will attend,
the hard eyed hands will long extend
embraces, mouths will speak, and soft
will be hard neon in the city.

I'll sing the song until it's right.
In threadbare coats and jeans too tight,
in soles too thin and sleeves too long,
I'll sing until the thing's not wrong
and I am one time whole. Then long
and fine will be the walk down back streets.

A child is lost in the forest of glass.
None knows his name.
None can call his name
into the bowels of the forest of glass.

A child who knows of no tall tiger grass
is lost. None came
calling him. None came
out of the trees and the tall tiger grass.

A child must prey where the loud engines pass.
None is but game.
Lost, a child eats game
under the sky where the loud engines pass.

I would better love you
in the morning of the bird,
in the cool cicada evening
of the day of flock and herd.
I could better love you.
Pound slaphammer noon.
Morning comes too soon.

I would better keep you
in the teak and ivory den,
in the gold and silver chambers
of a sanctum in the glen.
I could better keep you.
Ring out anvil streets
triumphs by defeats.

I would better know you
in the rippling of the wheat,
in the steel stalk corn and cotton
of the acres' rain washed peat.
I could better know you.
Squeeze cemented fields.
Urban lover yields.

He was raging in the night
while I was bent in fear.
Fists were clenched and clothes were drenched
in perspiration.
Fists were clenched, the knuckles white.
Their teeth would spit my dear
down, strike down, strike down my dear.

Love was in his magic. I
was in his image. He
took my legs that I would crawl
in desperation.
I had not the wings to fly
away, to carry me
far away, away from me.

He was falling in the night
while I was prone in fear
down upon me. Hands were clasped
in supplication.
Hands were clasped with all his might
around a love so dear.
Scream to breathe, to breathe my dear.

Love was understanding. He
was then relenting. I
breathed again, again, again
in resignation.

Drive my car. Do not know
where it takes me. I must go.
Does not care. Nor do I.
I will get there by and by,
I will get there. Must be so.
Doesn't really matter though.

Center line. Do not stray.
Trust my car. It knows the way.
Highway's long. Highway's sweet.
Highway's miles are made of feet.
Highway's miles are colored gray.
Center line just goes away.

Drive my car. Ease my mind.
Watch the twisting miles unwind,
Going fast. Going on.
When I get there I'll be gone.
When I get there I'll be kind -
kind enough to look behind.

A gentle hand, a fallen tear,
a whispered word beneath the smear
of grease, the screams, the feet of blind
men rushing, lost forever. Signed
in blood on flesh, the bill of sale.

The product thus received can't fail
to please the eye, to soothe the ear,
to make the rest seem not so dear,
to make the rest seem not at all.
The rest was just so very small
it was forgotten. Still the feet
that carry blind so deftly cheat.
For gone the smile, the wisp of hair,
the feeling. Everything was there.

The sun is rising in your hair, my child,
and I can't stay the noon.
I can see the first light in your eyes,
but I will not long sun in it. Not long.

When you awake, should I not be there,
go to the yard and watch the morning birds.
taste the dew which they so praise
and smell the green they stumble in.

Come the noon, go to the street.
See a laborer melting in his skin;
hear his pick ax echo strike by strike.
See a child and hear his ratapatting feet
slap him down the asphalt of an alley.
See a young man slouched, an old man down.
See house dressed ladies lounged on back door steps.
Hear the constant bumble of the high rise air.

Then come evening, in my absence, close your eyes
and you will hear a dulcimer.
You will hear a flute and strings
and an ancient song, when you close your eyes.

I leave these things for you, my child,
should we never meet again.
They have been my joy and sorrow.
You will know me knowing them.

Headlights from the city streets
paint dancing figures on the wall.
Engines grumble through the night,
the phantom players rise and fall
and leave without a trace at all.

I heard the sounds of locomotion
and a whistle's plaintive cry
of weakness, but the wheels were turning.
Steel on steel the sold reply.

The sounds of force accelerating
rhythmically as drums would play
recalled a light and tender time,
though made of steel the permanent way,

when near a depot long abandoned,
waiting for a passing train,
a child would sit alone for hours
just to hear the steel refrain.

I heard the sounds of locomotion
carrying a longing man
with freight and cargo to a place that
rails of steel alone could span.

No one paused but me

In an old timey wooden floor bar,
a fan in the ceiling, piano in the back room,
old timey wooden floor bar,
I remembered and was new again,
the way the floor must have looked
when the brass on the fan still shined
before the ivory lost its voice.

I was good in those frosted days.
I melted them in my hands
and drank them
and set them down in a puddle on the bar
and they were gone
the way the floor went underfoot,
the fan went overhead,
the piano went
at the hands of a thousand players.

In a wooden floor bar where days are shined
and stacked like empty glasses,
I was marked and gritty and silent
like everything around me.
So it should be
in an old timey place.

Ruby's someone no one knows.
She is all the rooms
heated by four burner gas ranges,
all the back seats, motels and urine smelling hallways
in the world.
No one knows, so she don't care.

Down on Main
where flowers blossom all around in season,
and tidy shops and tidy houses
sit inside their gardens,
they come for Ruby.
They are all the new cars, silk shirts and diamond pinky rings
in the world.
No one knows, so she don't care.

Then Ruby tells them, at a price,
they are all the crowns and scepters
in the world.
They tell Ruby, at a cost,
she is all the perfume, fur and finery.
Everyone tells everyone
that everything is fine
as long as no one knows
and she don't care.

So they are coming down on Main;
Ruby's waiting for them there,
down on Main where flowers blossom
and steeples chime the all-is-well.
No one cares, and she don't know.

I will stay and you will go,
or you will stay and I will go.
We have ever lived to part,
you and I. The way of time -
deaf to reason, blind to love,
mute - the way of time is parting.

We, afraid to go, alone,
children still now howling deep
cries in darkness - we are one
torn asunder. Yet we loved
knowing this: farewell must come.

We have ever lived to part;
never, though, to say farewell.
Loved, we have, embraced and touched,
you and I. The way of love -
knowing, everlasting, rich,
true - the way of love is living.

When I see the dancing of the green
in the azure winds of Summer,
I long to be that thing,
wanton in its abandon to the will
of Him who speaks to it
but not to me.

And when I hear the woodwind call to flight
and I cannot ascend,
I ache with the rejection given me
by those of wing who hurry where they must
and ask not why.

When the earth impales me
and then sets all around for me to see -
the explosion of its heart
in light and sound,
in water, color, winds and seas of epic activity -
I know my state.

Were I as I should be
I would be they
who spring forever from the hills,
who tumble through the winds,
who know the language of the Silent One
and who obey.

Sink down in the heavy wool coat
and hug it around you. Has holes,
a pocket or two's lost a seam,
but hug it. It's yours, it's all yours.

It's brick if December's sharp fang
can't pierce it, and oak if you wear it
right. It's an eiderdown bed,
a skin for your skin and it's yours.

It's fit for the city, your coat,
and right for the time. Not a soul
could wear it like you, so intent
on having it yours, only yours.

A Summer is coming for you.
You'll yet have a chance to recline
on pillows of grass, but not here.
Today you've the street and a coat.

I would see her run again,
chase again her schoolyard toys,
back lot fancies, idolled boys.
If I were bold and she were young again,

I would violate the code,
leave the ball field, leave the lake,
leave the bats and poles, forsake
it all to be near her. Then we would run

all the hours of days ago.
Scatter birds and watch them fly,
dance the fences, swim the rye
would we. How wrong the handiwork of time.

I will never see her run,
never chase her at her play.
Now she walks that crooked way
so bent above a hostile, angry earth.

I would see her run again,
flee this age which shackles me,
bound to brave world wizardry,
and humbles her. So out of time are we.

Children do not hear the thunder in the rain,
but a mighty, angry voice shouting,
"Bow down, tiny ones, bow down."
And they do and the storm passes over.

Men hear thunder that self same day
and comfort the children less they be bowed down.
"Stand tall. It is only the rain. Stand tall."
And they stand while the children bow
and the storm passes over.

At the ebb of the rain, the children arise
and wonder at might and their own tiny size.
Men scoff at them that self same time,
"See it was nothing more mighty than rain."
Then they pick up their hoes, their shovels and rakes
and over the earth they bow down.

A hound of the city howls
when a passing siren wails.
An ancient way stirs within him,
and cries to the streets, 'Alive
is the savage soul of me.
Forever alive, the fury."

A summons to blood, the cry
of the siren pounds the air
then fades. In the hound a restless
confusion prevails. Is he
of his day? He trots a street
now still, yet unsure a hound's will.

There's a train yard in the old town.
It's just a place to be
for the rusted and the idle.
No workshoe'd men will beat
a spike down; no out of breath beast
will wheeze up those old rails
in the graveyard of the boxcars.

There's a footbridge in the train yard
above the rusted veins,
just as old as all the old ways
put down to rest below.
It's a place where I am free to
confess to steel and wood
I have failed to be their equal.

Less than they in this cold season,
I'm quick to put them down,
those long hard lines of the old town.
But even lost in time,
some strange dignity attends them,
and all that's gloss can shine
not as bright, not as undying.

I am a man of brooms and mops
and I know nothing more than a janitor need know:
come the morning they will walk
where I have scrubbed the night before.

I have bowed over every tile
on which a shoe will land
and each, like the flesh of my love,
has known my hand upon it.

I have brought each along like a love
to lay beneath the heel,
to bear the weight of many,
to catch the refuse of careless passers-by.

I have dressed their wounds and masqued their scars
and sent my cherished tiles to the feet again,
for I know nothing more.
I am a man of brooms and mops.

I can't play no saxophone
but I can hear it played.
Sometimes it's a lady sighin;
sometimes it's a workin man.
But when it is an orphan cryin
I wish I could hold that child
and play.

I can't hold that child
in these dirty hands of mine.
I can't stop his cryin.
I can hear it way down here
on the sidewalks of the streets he's a child of.
Why, Lord, can I hear that saxophone
but never play?

I am thin of sole and thick of beard.
There is room for my hands in my pockets
and I do walk that way down back streets.

Down dark and narrow alleys,
tributaries to that golden horizon ahead,
I walk and walk but never arrive.

There on the skyline is glass piled high,
floor upon floor looking down at me,
blank eyes neither smiling nor weeping.

But me, I often smile and often weep.
I would all the more were I high in glass
looking down at these streets.

I would look back at where I'd been
and smile
at a long, long journey ended.

I would look back and weep
to see the weary throng
I had left behind.

Would my sorrow for them steal my joy
were I not still thin of sole?