183

The sun, fallen
From its southern circus,
Has made bland carriage
Into a alterior hemisphere.

Night : a chord struck.
The lights of low streets,
Laminate with rain, pass
In series the dark windows

Of the last local service.
The motion of the vehicle
Is contrary to that of
The earth, so that night

Comes, imperceptibly but
Substantially, slower. The
World is calm with love!
Hold the light, dear one.

182

Pastiche in green : an empty
Bottle of Heineken lies on
Its side in the gutter
Of the track. Dead soldier

Coated with quiet rain.
It is propped in the
Bed of the sleeper. Air
Forms at its orifice :

The empty chamber
Resounds with its purposes,
Elastic. The end of air
Is dominion : full presence.

Our forlorn Dane is bound
To it, like the receptacle
Of the last word of God,
As fire is born of air.

181

The hawk let its wings
Fall open. The light
Fell through the air
And through the lucid

Plumes of the hawk's
Extended primaries :
A form of it rose up
On a frame of pinions.

The body an avatar of
The light, the light-
Hawk the body's agent.
O angel-schematic!

It fell as a blue skein
Of smoke falls. Fall,
Aging soir. Its red
Belly burning like stars.

180

He came under the porch.
Crossing the field
The house had been an
Absurdity, a toy

Coloured with the light
Of fallen trees.
It had been too bound
By its making

To stand commensurate
With the large
And fragile space of all
The outer air.

Under the porch, the open
Field was lit :
A cavity sown with
Seedlike fires.

179

A broken bottle, couchant
On field of loose granite and
Cigarette ends wet by rain,
Is an abject personality.

The light it imbibes is
General, and comes as it
Goes, in the continuity of
Its diverse causes, sated.

Light of morning cannot be
More full of morning than
Morning is full of light. It
Is a consummated expression.

A broken bottle is a bottle,
And it is its brighter prodigies.
Outstrung aspects, in aureole :
O, flagrant archipelagos!

178

Three brant broke from
The edge of the projection.
Waves were breaking over
It that lit white in the
Dim light of the sound.
Brant rode lazily in the
Nearest swell, black and
Their bodies barely there
As it grew down to night.
The three prodigies went
Across the water in a
Triform and their white
Tails were like flares in
Silent recession, as if
They had been fired out
From some inordinate place
Back beyond their origin,
Only to fade like a dream.
It was not wholly dark.
The sunlight was present
But diffuse in all it held.
There was a broken bank of
Cloud, dark, full of rain,
Falling far out in the
Sound, like an old depiction
Of the dismantled Godhead.

177

John lay disjointedly over the
            Roots of a tree. He had hit
                        The base of the tree at full
Force and it had arrested his
            Progress through the air; his body
                        Had then dropped the remaining
Three feet and impacted an area
            Of uneven protruding roots, rolling
                        Over three times before coming
To a stop. He was unconscious,
            His legs lying up the slope and
                        The arc of his spine distorted,
Forming a concavity. His chest was
            Rising and falling. His neck was
                        Twisted under his body's weight
And his head turned to the side.
            He had sustained a glancing
                        Concussion to the back of his head
And broken a floating rib
            And he had lacerated the skin
                        Of his arms and torso in a
Number of places. He was
            Bleeding primarily from a large
                        Opening in the skin of his skull,
And blood and clear plasma was
            Seeping into the moss below
                        His head, where it refracted
The ambient light of the wood,
            Forming a ragged aura that seemed
                        To hang from his bloodied hair.

176

Dewey stood in Hollis' shadow
            But was partially lit by the indirect
                        Radiance of the pile of burning
Refuse before them. It was an
            Asymmetrical stack of flat elements
                        Of discomposed furniture and parts
Of old barn doors with joists
            Cut to three foot lengths balanced
                        At each side to facilitate the spread
Of flame and to prevent a
            Dampening collapse. The bonfire was
                        Static and continuous and inherently
Unstable, creating unstable shapes
            In the terrain of the observers' faces,
                        Perpetually extinguishing and renewing
Itself beyond the eye's capacity
            To see. It was situated near the
                        Edge of a harvested corn field,
In the blue light of the cold
            And to Dewey the woodsmoke in
                        Its slow spiral looked like a schematic
Drawing of a small intestine
            Where it sawed and guttered and
                        Reconstituted itself in the sheer air.
It smelt of gas and damp
            Sacking and mould and the iron taste
                        Of blood mixed with spit in his mouth.
Hollis bared his teeth to the sky
            And spat the phlegm from his throat,
                        Laughing and shaking his inclinded head.

175

John maintained a pose of relative
            Stasis as the momentum of his bicycle
                        Carried him down the incline that
Modulated the path's course
            Through the woods behind the farm.
                        His knee and ankle were locked in
The pedal stirrup on the chainside
            And on the alternate his right
                        Leg was pendent, almost touching
The path that fell away behind it.
            He was travelling at eighteen miles
                        Per hour and he was accelerating.
Three doves broke from the crown
            Of the canopy and made a staggered
                        Ascent into the air. At intervals
The relative rotation of treetrunks
            In parallax would create a corridor
                        Through which he could see smoke
Curl from a woodfire burning out
            In the fields past the terminus of the
                        Incline. He let the handlebars go,
And lifted his arms to make a
            Cruciform and gave voice to a long
                        Inchoate shout that trembled in
The uneven surface of the pathway.
            A half mile from the limit of the
                        Wood the front wheel buckled in a
Hollow and the axle collapsed. John
            Was thrown four metres. On landing, he
                        Fell unconscious and began to bleed.

174

Eliot went to the sink and
            Inverted the bowl so the coagulate
                        Mixture of sodden meal and curds
Fell viscously out of it,
            Overrun with thin whey that
                        Was like human plasma where it
Caught the tangent light from
            The window. He saw without
                        Attention the discomposed remains
Part flow, part slide into the well
            Of the drainhole and then turned his
                        Eyes to face the consistency of
The yard. Every object in it
            Was stationed by some ordination
                        Beyond his interest and lit without
Priority at a lateral angle
            By sun dispersed through a
                        Large bank of cumuli to the south.
It was a colourless morning.
            He could hear his father progress
                        Through the rooms of the upper
House, and what he disassociatedly
            Decided was the sound of his
                        Mother's soft and regular speech.
There were a great number of crows
            Traversing the interval between the
                        Woods and the roof of the barn,
Lighting on it in a long,
            Undulating progress like particles
                        In a continuous stream of fluid.

173

Then he would withdraw from
            The stairwell and retrace the
                        Coordinates of his previous thought
And once again oscillate within
            The bounds of the black, lacquered
                        Countertop and the table where
Eliot sat with his mouth half open
            And the window, like an
                        Auxiliary device in some obscure
And distant crisis, being forced
            Into a function from which he
                        Was disassociated, being bound by
A wager he had already lost.
            He was a man of intrinsic utility,
                        Moderate enough to not need any
Third party to injure him.
            Eliot sat making facile gestures
                        Towards his cereal bowl and not
Understanding anything about his
            Father. He watched him take
                        His head in his hands and make
A protracted shape with his body
            Over the sink, holding his head
                        As if he were at any moment about
To detach it. He turned to face
            Eliot, and then he went to the
                        Staircase and stood there for some
Time in the process of an abortive act,
            A prolapsed motive. Then something
                        In him yielded : He began to climb.

172

Eliot sat and listened to
            His father's voice and ate his
                        Cereal looking into the whiteness
Of the tablecloth. The cereal
            Was of grey oats and full fat
                        Milk of which some sediment
Had formed, for he had
            Disturbed its surface only in one
                        Part of the bowl, and he ate
Slowly and without energy.
            His father was speaking mechanically
                        About yield and elaborating on
Climatic effects of the particular season
            And occasionally referring to the
                        Innate bias of the marketplace.
His long, seamed face worked and
            When he sought emphasis his
                        Mouth would form an ellipse and
His cheeks depress, making him look
            Morbid. The regularity of his
                        Drawled vowels had a soporific
Effect on Eliot, as did the
            Hypnotic motion of his father's lean form ;
                        From the kitchen counter to the
Window, from the window to the table
            And then to the foot of the staircase
                        Where he would perform a disjointed
Series of actions : half-mounting, uttering
            Half-formed thoughts, dismounting ; as if
                        His mind was only part engaged.