I see them—Crab, Ram, Bull,
And all the world is only shell
Whose pearl and opalescence

Genghis Khan me, you midnight plantation!
Dark blue birch trees, sound in my ear!
Zarathuse me, you twilight horizons!

You call out again to announce your arrival:
As before, there is no answer.
You stand up, look around, find the kitchen.

Going among the harsh hollows of the water,
The skiff navigates between the crests
And almost is swamped by them. The rower pulls

Aware of all this mutability, I ask what does not change:
The longing of the heart to know is what I find myself saying.

In the name of one more leavening
I hoist the flag, the closed eye
of the letter B in cursive here.

I dreamed I bad been dreaming.
And sadness did descend.
And when from the first dreaming

She’s in a room full of letters, dressed in white
amidst proliferate papers, the exploded lace of sheets.
Her hair froths white, her pale eyes chill, as when I first

I know the general outline of despair. Despair has no wings, it doesn’t necessarily sit at a cleared table in the evening on a terrace by the sea.

Knock,
Knock forever.

In the lure of the threshold.