218

        As we were headed south,
        The sun as it set illumined
The opposite interior panel of
The imitation ebony laminate
That lined the carriage walls.

We came through a grove of
Willow trees that cascaded
Into a small pool, and their
Branches broke the light into
Fragments that swung wildly
Across the walls from north
To south. I remembered that
In my early childhood I had
Slept in the light of a magic
Lantern, which projected over
The walls of my bedroom a
        Parade of phantasms that
Rode silently through the dust.
Then I felt that I was calm.

In the aura of light that hung
Over the water, insects gathered,
Their bodies becoming aspects
Of its fulness, like particles of a
Fiery matter held in solution.

217

            I thought, in our loneliness
We sometimes fall out of this
Continuity of causes. At once
            It is as if our access to the
Communion of being had been
Interrupted, some cord severed,
            And for a while we can act
Only as would a device that had
Been disconnected from its anima.

Left without command or direct
    Imperative we are forced into
Extemporisation. The great lights
        Of our culture form a chain,
And that chain is our one hope.
We seek shelter in common loves :
        Rather to be loved than free.

It was becoming evening. Workers
Trudged home through the fields
In overalls and white shirts. Light
Struck the crown of a boy's hair :
Marigold! All else faded into blue.

216

The illusion all vehicles are made
To propagate of control had been
        Broken, and all ellided into a 
Generalised state of emergency in
Which no cause could be derived
From any end. All sound had gone
        Into the chassis of the train
        Where it trembled like a body
        Under fatigue. All of a sudden a
Sense of enervation came over me
And I realised I had experienced not
    The breakdown of all the systems
    Of the physical world, but a brief
    Attack of anxiety that seemed to
    Have confined itself to my person :
Down the carriage I saw that
The other passengers retained their
Placid expressions of disinterested
        Observation : some even dozed.

        I felt my heart climb down
From its vantage in my gorge
And settle into a phatic rhythm,
        And my lungs dilate and admit
Air, and stars danced before
        My eyes forming faint vortices.

215

        As I watched the crows fold
Back into themselves and fall
        To earth, a thought emerged
From a substrata of my mind,
Where it had been dormant and
Still and where in my distraction
At the passing phenomena of the
        World I had not detected it :

That nothing but friction and the
Mass of the engine and carriages
        Held the train fast to the rails,
        That as the wheels were made
To pivot as the bearing of the line 
Altered there could be no bond
        Of lateral pressure to adhere
        Wheel to rail but rather a
        Space allowed for movement.

As I watched the landscape pass
It now felt as if the carriage were
Descending into an acceleration
        Of which there could be only
One product and one terminus.

214

A wind came up from where
  The long grass of a field bent,
Thrumming at the aperture
    Of the slightly open window
That ran along the ceiling of
      The carriage. I was looking
Down into the field when the
  Black bodies of several crows
Rose out of a cavity formed
  By the contour of the terrain,
Motionless of themselves, yet
   Rising as upon the inaudible
Command of a choreographer.

At an ebb of the upsurging wind
Their bodies seemed to fall from
        Them and begin to fragment,
So that it seemed the wind had
Invested them with structure and
Momentum, that now, dissolving
        Into the formlessness of their
Origins, they were like phrases
Of thought, living only so long
                    As they should be held.

212

The carriage resonated with the
Force of its uneven passage :
            I felt my body tense to it
In accommodation as inertia

Held me first here, then here,

            As if the process by which

Providence stationed the elements
Of reality were continually in
            Review. My body a subject
            Only, the incidental conduit
            Of some far and other object
            Without our mundane sense.

            So, I drew a solace into
This scattershot momentum.
The participal of my existence,
    Held in the causes of all such
    Great machinery, the weight
And fuel and carnage of it forging
From station to lighted station.

The plain words of a life without
Emergency, spoken each in turn.

211

Further on, the trees broke for

A fleeting instant on the prospect

Of a narrow stretch of river that

Lay grey and overhung with low

Branches, where diseased lilies

        Lay on the water like debris.
        It was a slow capillary that
Drank of the dust coming from
        The rails and of the pollen
        And blossom from its edges.

In the water a white crane stood
        Hunting for fish, a silent and
Deathlike figure in the dropping air,
        Its eyes covered with black as if
        By a mask and its ear seeming
Stained with blood or covered with
        The satin of a crimson banner.

After a moment this all passed,
Remaining only as a pale iteration
In my mind. The memory decayed
Almost at the moment of its forming,
        So that it was all but gone
Several minutes later, when I
        Looked up and saw that the seat
        Across from me lay empty.

210

The undergrowth seemed to fall,
Petrified, from its place, like
            The long line of a breaker
Caught in the consummation of
    Its power, that moment that
    Precipitates collapse. So the
Ourflung arms of rhododendron
    And brush seemed to entreat,
Turning in place at our passage,
    Stunted and botched and dark
Like the abandoned prototypes
    Of some now-perfected engine.
 
            A heat lay coiled in my gut,
Watching the shadows surge, the
            Carriage contributing its
Shade, watching the brief flight
Of a mourning dove from branch
            To far branch, an instance
Of a life among other instances,
    Among other lives, so alien to
What one knows by understanding.

I cannot hold you in my hands,
I say to that body flung softly into
        The air of its lonely force.

209

Each green bronchus seemed to

Have been arrested in the process

Of munition : every growth coming

To propagate growth in a sequential

     Catalogue of possible forms so

The totality of all its manifestations

     Should transcend the observer,

Attaining that omniprescence of

Any complacent prospect that wills

Itself extended beyond all made

Boundaries : being, as it was, a reef

     Upon the air that heaved as if

Assuring of supraplein abundance.

The sense of the sublime is

As a light that runs its cable deep

Into the heart of our being,

I disclosed to myself in silence,

As the train passed in state

Through dusty crepuscular rays

That fell from flaws in the vault

Of the canopy. I will take that

Light to me as I would any other.

208

                                       Parallax

Spun the whitetops around them

     Like dancers, the axis forming

     Of one instance wherever one

Should look : the laying of sight

     Made the point where all of it

     Would pirouette, for as long

As the look remained static.

     So that in looking one set a

     Dance in motion contained in

Itself and ephemeral as will.

The bridge ran out, the last

Spokes converging fluidly to

A point out of sight below the

Lower frontier of the window,

     A figurative vertice.

     The trees came on like sleep.

     The canopy was high as if our

Conveyance had fallen below the

Surface of a lake that remained

Nonetheless visible far over us,

Passing through the conjugations

Of a regular mutation, as ageless

                                          As smoke.

207

The girders passed the aperture

Of the window and they shone

    Yellow and grey with rust

    As if they had aged during

The rain. At the interstices of

The structure of the bridge

Rainwater pooled and cascaded

Weakly, as the rain had ceased.

                It was like an attribute

The structure shed : now with

No utility than mass it fell

From those blank surfaces of

Crusted metal as from a falls.

The bridge bore light solidly,

And there was water beyond

Heaving grey with presence :

    A body that seemed almost

To leap and be dragged back

With each instance of girdage

Through which it was rendered

    Visible and invisible in turn.

    It was a pinwheel kinema

Going away into itself as the

Motion of the carriage bore it

Behind into partiality and then

To eclipse beyond the threshold

Of the windowframe.