527

526

525
Exquisite as the moth's fan sweep of air
In all dull planes, shimmering in circumspection's
Lack, did the stone kill New York City's daughter.
In her brief term's anteroom
Was the floor swept, the milk fetched.

524

523

522
After the snow, the disengagement's anatomy was drawn
In the shrouded sun's spackled pall light,
Mapping the air to tree veins
In ghost white.
The season's fleet carapace to a green heart
Was ours too in gray fellowship--
Brittle particular to tendril union,
Cold with faultless age.

521

520

519

518
There is no pot to hold this rose
Nor vase in the still tempest of hours;
Nor's earth undone and remade
Too large a canvas
For such various opacity
And pallid green.
Untheme'd stalk from every beginning,
Frameless stay, uncaught endeavor.

517

516

515
Unsure of this morning
And light turning with a tint drop
In the pool of darker clearness:
An aftertaste of night--
Not to come, but was.
Is this time, backward into day
Folding memory?
Else unraveling
Presents ribbon unrein,
Or the now bird-throated trees' discurling song.

514
Hokusai's wave in its large poise it is
As your many fingers
At my back before the words
Fold down in grave
Exasperation not unmingled with an old thought,
As a salt on the leavings of the beach.

513

512
Your worst may seem defining,
As best is the common chance
Illumination
That outlines with a random start
The alley or no-thru way.
The precision is the minus
Of a puzzle's cut-out blank.

511

510
The beauty of the fallow
Is a shadow back-lit,
A tintinabulation hushed.
In unsure calamity met, or not,
The winter garden austerity
Is coldly meet.

509

508