235

Le vieux s'agenouilla à le foyer,
Empalant les jointures de bois gris
Avec un tisonnier. Lumière jailli,
Une machôire de flamme se levait 
À la brique de la foyer, se tordait,
Couvait, et se retirait. Cendres est
Tombé dans la main de l'enfant.
Fagots a eclaté vers l'interieur avec 
Un rugir et une fragile lumière
S'épanouissait dans le brûlé épave.

La lumière est l'enfant de le feu
Et n'est pas le feu, l'homme a dit.
Lumière est le fantôme de ce qu'on
Ne vois. Feu est la mort de bois,
Et c'est une chose ancien et étoilée,
Et c'est lente. Tu vois? Et il passa
Sa main entièrement grâce le feu.

Sur les arbres sous le colline, illuminé
Par les étoiles, un vent coloré souffla.

234

Une fois Dewey a trouvé un
Lapin mort en l'herbe longue à
L'arrière de la maison, se couchant
Comme si il a eu tombé endormi
Dans la nuit. C'était un Samedi
Matin. Sa fourrure etait lissé
De rosée, et l'herbe autour où
Il se couchait a été bleu et tout
Enfilées des lumières humides.
Les gouttes étaient astres du jour.
Dewey l'a regardé, debout, dans
Une vieilles chemise blanche qui
Etait comme une robe sur lui, sur
Son corps léger. Un fantôme blond.
Le lapin était cassé à la cou. Taches
Sombres dans l'herbe, et les yeux
Étaient vacants et sans couleur.

Le feu qui a été dans le lapin a
Divisé et incendiée l'herbe autour.
Sa force a bondi dans l'air, et a
Répandu en archipels de lumière.

233

For some minutes the image of the
White room and the peeling paint
Remained to me, held in place by
A nebulous and disconcerting sense
That somehow the train and its
Passengers were only a continuation
Of my dream, that at any time
            I might wake anew and find
Myself somewhere else altogether,
For instance at home in my bed.
Of the preceding events that passed
Before me in sleep I retained only
Fragments : their order had become
    Confused and their vitality gone.
I remembered the darkness and the
Movement of lights and great sounds,
But I could not hear or see them
Any longer, they were now no more
Than ideas to me. I felt this as a loss.
I began suddenly to think of my
Brother, but it was impossible to
Determine if this thought had come
Out of some forgotten part of the
Dream, or from a submerged idea
Of him in my mind, or from some
Other far place without coordinate.
The longer I looked the fainter the
Images of the dream grew, until
    I remembered only the white room.
Smoke rose above passing silhouettes
Of buildings, lit yellow and ringed
            With a periphery of weak stars.

232

  A voice spoke : I will carry you
From the dark. Evening has come.
   It is not good to sleep so long.

I opened my eyes and saw that
Night had fallen upon the carriage.
They had turned on the lights :
A soft glow from behind acetate.
Streetlamps swept their rays over
The interior walls, over the faces
Of newly embarked passengers.
A string of saliva connected the
Lapel of my jacket to my lower lip,
And below the lip a crust where
Some had dried. I wiped it away,
Gently. I could smell sleep in my
Hair, and feel my own breathing,
Soft and heavy, and the clatter
Of the train passing over the earth
Was like a meditation. I looked
About me, and then out into the
Dark beyond the window. Forms

Of houses and their dim curtains

Rose from the pools of streetlight.
A prodigy of the train's interior 
Was borne out into the night. Our
Pale images hung in the dark like 
Ghosts. I thought about my dream.

231

    Once my eyes had adjusted to
The unadulterated light by which
They had suddenly been struck,
I was able to distinguish rows of
Halogen bulbs hung in the space
    Above my head, all encased in
Sheaths of thin metal, arranged
In series. I found myself in a
Room of some size, devoid of any
Furnishings other than the lights
Overhead. The walls were identical
Edifices covered in a white paint
That had decayed and fallen away
    In many places, revealing dark
And indeterminate openings that
Were like wounds in the side of
A gigantic and indifferent animal.
The floor was tiled, also in white,
And at some distance from me lay
   An area laced with fine cracks
As if a heavy object had fallen there.
The room was entirely silent, and
As I moved closer to the nearest
Wall my footfalls did not sound.
I came upon a door that appeared
   To have rusted into a recess in
The crumbling paintwork. When I
Tried the handle it gave on an
Obscure space. As I strained to see
Through it, I felt myself waking.

230

I realised at once that the little
        Lights were stars, and that as
They grew faint with distance
They were falling into the old forms
Of constellations. Some of the lights
Split or collided and left clouds
        Of gas that coalesced softly of
Themselves, and flashes of white
Occurred at intervals sending out
Darker matter among the trajectories
Of the brighter bodies. The furthest
        Pilgrims seemed to gain in their
Momentum as they receded, and at
The limits of my sight these stars
Began to wheel and pirouette upon
Unseen axes : as more fled into
        The lightless outer field a havoc
Of agitated motion grew there and
It was as if a silent will had lit
Dancing fires at the boundary of the
Heavens. There was a groaning
        Sound like the chassis of a great
Vehicle being demolished : a fury
Of evacuation in which the cries
Of saxophones and dying blasts
Upon the organ could be heard.
        Suddenly the stars were put out,
And all flooded with blinding light.

229

    As light continued to pour from
    Orifices rent in the darkness,
Blooming like a pale flower or the
Outflung corpus of a vast, ghostly
    Zooplankton in the deep ocean,
Odours began to rise up to me
    That seemed to communicate
Inarticulate parts of my past self :
The fester of desiccated geraniums,
Rotten apples crushed into soil,
    The smell of hay beneath the
Bodies of sleeping animals, the
Discharge in the air after a rain :
    The odours of my hot breath
Sharp in the air before me as I
Woke in the night, and returned
Into sleep : the commingling of oil
And woodsmoke and dust with the
    Reek of feces, with the effluvia of
Violet and magnolia and hyacinth :
A soft taste of grey morning air.

The milk-white particles spread
As if across a river in the night,
And it seemed that a heavy wind
Came over the lights so that they
Nodded in place like paper lanterns.
       An ache flowered in my ribcage.

228

Light flooded from the punctures in
The barrier, a mass that seemed at
First made of particles conjoined as
In a nucleus : as the mass fed itself
Into the darkness it spread slowly
    As into a solution, and what had
Been a stream began to dissipate
In fragments that careened outward
In every direction, as if of their own
Volition. Each sending out a solitary
Light into a vacant quarter of the
    Void : like luminous creatures
Crossing distant fathoms of an abyss,
Trailing insectile tendrils, giving
Off sparks of antenna or mandible,
Haloed in the aspects of their light.
I thought that perhaps they were
    Only pilot-lights of some greater
Structure to come, that their fragile
Movements into vacancy would bear
New forms out into the darkness.
For a time I did not know whether
    The lights lay beyond me or if they
Only played across the inner surface
Of my closed eyes : no sound
Of a carriage or engine reached me
Where I had gone. Somewhere ahead,
The trembling sound of a mandolin.

227

                   The ashes of an unseen fire
Seemed to rise out of the dim
        Space before me, and the barrage
Of drums and banshee horns
         Fade and gutter, until two voices
Remained, mutually held in the
         Alloy of one duration : a vibrato
Interval that suspended itself across
          The vault beyond me, collapsing
Into eddies of half-formed arpeggi :
        Now in parallel, now in fugue,
Now in a low counterpoint that would
Gradually build itself only to fall back
Into a strained and latent harmony.
        As these voices faltered and drew
Near the threshold of silence,
      An explosion occurred : the report
Of a single screaming trumpet,
             Then an arc of white light that
Broke across the surface of the
                 Far dark causing it to buckle
And coruscate like iron under the
       Heat of a forge. It was as if a great 
Mass of fused points of light 
   Were crashing through a membrane
Of slight construction : the very fabric
   Of the lightless deep shuddered and
Rent in places and cataracts of
       Molten whiteness poured forth as
From bulletholes in a black pail.

226

                I turned my body—in place,
As would a dancer at the apex
                Of a saut—from the darkness.
There was a sense of motion
        That I could not define, and then
A cataclysm : the totality of sound
        Seemed to crash in on me, first the
Jangle of a struck mandolin
        Hung quivering in space, then in an
Instant a confluence of strings
        That seemed to light disparate fires
In the murk ; following, a colossal
        Blow upon the piano that recoiled
Darkly into its own lower register,
        Held at once within a structure of
Thunderous drums and bright cymbals.
     As these colliding elements began to
Galvanise they were utterly overcome
    By an inchoate, monstrous howling
Of wordless voices and saxophones :
    A mordant and dissonant tide of
Ululating noise like the expression of
    Some primal and ineluctable force.
    It was as if I had been addressed
    From the obscurity by the very anima
    Of the universe, in an unmediated
    Language that I could not hope
    To comprehend. The dark seemed to
            Swell and prickle with far lights.

225

As he turned away from me I felt
Myself fall back from the room
Until I was some distance from it
    In the darkness. I could see
    The interior, lit as if of itself,
Hanging in the emptiness like a great 
Fire-balloon sent up into the night.
No stars were visible beyond the
Lighted place: it was as if making
My way on foot through the deep
Country during the darkest hours
Of night I had come upon a dim
    Garden, at the end of which
Lay a broad window and inside a
Bright scene to which I nonetheless
Could have no access : a glow
Touching the flowers and falling,
Diminished, before my weary feet.
    I felt as far from my birth as
At any time in my life, as I watched
My child-projection grow smaller
And less distinct, as I watched the
Steady light of my old bedroom
Recede into an enveloping dark.

As the room became no more
            Than a point of light, I felt
A tremor in the air around me—

224

            Into the now-distinct arena of
The lighted room came a third party
That seemed to originate in my own
            Person : a trembling and hazy
Projection of my body as it
Was in my childhood that went
Before me into the space, trailed
Vaguely by a grey aura as are
Images transmitted through static or
Exposed to too much light. This
Child-body seemed to move without
            Force : as it advanced into the
Room my own vantage drew back
In proportion until the projection
Occupied the centre of the room and
I found myself outside the threshold.
The features of the child were not
Distinct but I recognised his posture
            And his gait as being my own.
Further, there was some unspoken
Sense in which he communicated to
Me his knowledge of our shared self.
Sitting himself on the wicker chair,
He turned to me : as our gazes met
For an instant, a flood of images
Cascaded before my eyes, ending
Abruptly as he looked away beyond
          The thin partition of the walls.

223

This sense lasted only as long
As the last vestiges of the limbic
Void remained : soon my vision
Was presented with an integral
Reproduction of the room that
I had known, a facsimile that
No longer reacted to the touch
Of my thought by reconfiguring,
But stood consistently of itself.
    Only half-consciously, I felt
That the headrest against which
I leant somehow acted as a
Buttress for the rear wall that
    Lay out of sight behind me.
The seat and the trembling of
The floor of the carriage were
As foundations that put forth
An abstract support which held
My bedroom in place. The walls
Furthest from me found no
Counterpart, and they seemed
At times to vacillate, and the
Size of the room would not hold.

222

            As each attribute took its place
The object would seem to grow
Almost imperceptibly and at once
            To recede from me, as if by
Regaining the features of quotidian
Reality the bold structural lines
            Of its first raw form had lost
Some of their transcendent power.
            These lines of force no longer
Extended beyond the boundaries of
            The objects which they served :
As the characteristics of the room
            Took place, this naïve energy
Of self-construction shrank back
And became hidden behind the
            Tangible facade of the room's
            Outer surface. For the fleeting
Moment in which this schematic
View of my childhood was visible
            I felt as if I had gained access
            To a staging area of reality :
That this unmediated power
            Must lie behind all mundane
Experience, that somehow memory
Lived in every present moment of
            My life, willing each scene into
            Existence. I felt that perhaps I
Had never directly felt any of the
Sensations of my childhood, that
            They too had been constructed,
Passed down out of a senseless void :
That the present was perhaps only
            A prodigy of my living thought.

221

            Without yet opening my eyes,
            I watched the furniture of my
            Past life reconstitute itself
            As if under its own power :
Planes and vertices rendered at 
The slightest suggestive motion of
Thought converging into familiar
Shapes, finally making themselves
Known overtly to my consciousness,
As if by each speaking a soft word,
Every new presence consummating
A particle of the larger construct.

            As each object appeared to me
I had the impression of encountering
            It for the first time, and yet at
            Once of a rupture in the dense
            Fabric of the intervening years
Through which the object's attributes
            Seemed to fall. It was as if the
Haemorrhage of a communicating
            Membrane between two parts
Of my brain had allowed the fluid
Of association to torrent suddenly
            From one chamber to another.

220

    I allowed myself to drift
    Through a series of unformed
    Impressions that the memory
    Of my bedroom had provoked :
    As the dimming earth fell away
    Relentlessly beneath the wheels
        So too a vast terrain fell
    Past the portal of my interior,
    Lit here and there by images
    Many of which I had thought
        Lost in distance and sleep.

        I will not open my eyes,
        I thought, believing they would
        Flee once superimposed : that
        In the low light of the carriage
They would decay and be forgotten.
I held them before me wilfully,
So the feeling they communicated
Should not disappear. Gradually the
Frail structure of my bedroom
Began to assemble itself in the
        Cavity of my thought as if in
The form of a diorama. Walls rose,
Membranes of tenuous construction
Serving only to house the objects
Of my recollection. They lacked
Texture and lapsed when examined,
But held while the vivid objects
Of memory held their places as
The anchors of all contained within.