“Burning up myself, I would leave fire behind me.”- Robin Blaser

1

I would speak to you 
after fire

from after fire proclaim 
a kingdom 
beyond what can be said of it 
or what can be made of it but 

only must this, just, 
only-now-time, tell you 

to speak at will as you 
will as if to please 
a silent vase in an 
open window
and so sing 

because much 
there is in image melody, 

blood song, 
appealing oranges in the 
wooden bowl a monk once gave

“handmade for poets,” 
(he whispers)  

bending forward as if
to lunge

pointing toward the heart
and what is left 
between its beginning lilt there 
and the pretending to 

end though displaced
air and silence be captivated, 

miscreant
tongues at work in darkness
and breath. 

What remains, remains. 

Afterward there is not even 
counting or even a surmounting 
sense, 

“the point is 
transformation of
the theme -

enjoinment and departure” yet

“the swans have gone.”


You have left no choice but just this
to say

that the pitiable 
hand cannot bend to the 
task that only knees are 
capable of, 

and let me not speak of the heart always

over-reached...


2

Of Mind there is much to 
say but can't and cant rave 
as much as should and ought.

I never bought 
too much of Dante's 
extended argument
though well stanza-ed 

in clinical Catholic
thought and virtual
form, Virgil 
at hand to lend
a terse account, 

but in Latin  
have joyed in his 
heaving forth 
rung by rung 
and 

trying 
by his tongue
to gain a 
loveliness 
beyond the castle 

(there odd numbers are key) .


3

“not to be named is to be lost in light” - Blaser

Spicer told me once from
the other side
while I was humming
Edith Piaf about
a rosiness so very
real o're the well

the spice garden
the backyard spread
before the orchard
on our personal
hill reveried

never once climbed
so enamored of the
bees at work
there

their Queen of
the Hill (Duncan) 
and the Apple

named “Bittersweet”

not to be
disturbed
at all
in this
or any other
May to come


comes Spicer
permitted at last

to the meadow
returned

with Robert (here too) 

enjoined me to leave
only
a guidebook: 

Cryptics For Cripples And Cantors

“The rest,” he sneered, “are
matters not concerned; broken Maker or
broken meter the world wags on, 

not one stone
bitter
in the House
That Metrics
Built.”



4

“the window-heart speaks
shattered 
as god speaks, 
speaking 
does so” (Blaser)  

Only the shattered 
can make something 
of bread tide, 
of slow rise 
thin breeze
through 

the kitchen window, 
the curtain there 
draped, torn, 

the old pipe burst
jutting red from 
wall shale, 

drips into a tin (dimpled)  
cup its own psalm
stippled blue 

“how long o Lord, 
how long” of candles 
in the attic study 

making books dance, 
a wooden cave devoted 

of ghostly
images made; 


there is
the sad mourning still, 

the letting 
go of even a leg up 
in the world because being
as it is known the way we know it 

has 
no leg by which to balance 
or can't like a candled book
or a cancelled look
dance upon a sill, 

or chance upon that which may
be withstood to stand 

upon though 

stand we will 
and must and 

flutter-foot alight

so many winged 
ones addressing 

the old and present 
wounds.


5

Of holy tunes the forest is deep with them, 

rife, 

among the loosestrife
bees saw humming on, 

mouths full, pollen-full
legs bowed by daylight  
“oh work for the night is coming”

where now I have fled to a place
where my bed is already made
beyond the fiddle's bliss

and the ferns to turn Rilke
on his head dead by roses, 
the pricks - 

I tear at 
earth again 
to lift me up 
from it, once 
again

to mark place,  

to burn, rave beneath 
catalpas, 

kiss the cow whose 
hooves 
are Loveliness Itself, 
Lucy's, in ever melting 
snow and mud; 

storm clouds, too, in retreat 
swearing off ditches, giving, 

or trying, up
the need for rhyme.


Rain persuades even the dead 
that it bears no rhythm in its head

and I am persuaded most 

thinking again “of
the bewitchment upon that hill”

the forest fire that startles
holy there, 

the captured hands among 

leaves do ramble, 

crab

and out-star 

bestowal beyond

what can be said of it, 

or what can be made of it, 

but only must this, just, 

only-now-time, tell you 

to speak at will, as you 

will, as if to please 

the persuaded rain

to brim to gullies 

yes even to rhyme 

a joyous river 

stuttering pouring out