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Mother
Under the hill, where the rain is a flood,
            My child has gone down to bed. The vault
                        Of heaven is crowded : forms of starlight, gouts
Of holy fire that shiver and touch, dark veins
            Of gold and ochre and peach and rose and blue,
                        In bloom, that bind together, like lost thoughts.
God, you hold me in your arms tonight!
            What is the word known to all men? I may not
                        Ask you for your voice again, until I come to you.

In the night of our years a bird sang,
            And I spoke to you to ask if you knew its name,
                        Thrush, you said, and turned away and fell asleep.
There is a thrush of starlight formed above
            Our cradle, above our bed. Its song rattles
                        Through the engineroom of the heavens. Borealis!
In the vast and naked pantomime of lights,
            The music of its rapture takes our form. Love,
                        Have you yet woken? The kingdom has fallen, and
All God's angels have gone down to bed.

            The voice of the thrush has washed away,
                        Under the hill. I speak into the quiet of our room,
Words that may call his body up again.
            Mother, what is the word known to all men?
                        My thrush, I will lie down to sleep that you rise.
The grate, grown ashen, evacuates its fuel.
            My mind is stupid, that cannot let itself be.
                        Where is the body of the man, my old Holofernes?
I he has sufficed too long, and so have I.
            In my memory his eyes smoke like honey :
                        I should be the pale force that will drown his sleep.