Left to itself, setting is the chance that
something good might happen. A highway runs the
length of the peninsula. The suburbs overlap.

The wind runs free across our plains,
The live sea beats forever at our beaches.
Man makes earth fertile, earth gives him flowers and fruits.

Reflected horribly in the grand piano,
the sky is offered up as your accompanist.
You pick out a melody with one hand,

Having done compline by hand at the naked breast
with fingertip and ball of thumb, with tongue,

having with tonguetip traced from breastbone

Such is the way with monumental things:
to make us see and wonder.

Take that hand away, the hand
washing like small warm stones along my neck

There’s a donkey standing in the doorway,

In the sixty-three years
I have lived
some instants are electric:

I think it is well known now
how you can take one part of the country
and re-erect it somewhere else, how the abrupt, snow-streaked

I went down to Missolonihgi
with my oldest friend—this was a long time ago—
and we visited Byron’s house,

As if your half-witted tongue
Spoke with an eloquence
Death bestows, I heard your voice