What is there
for my gloomy father
to get so worked up about,

The men walk among ribs.
The glow they see by is rooted in the bones.
They have entered a cavity in the cliff,

Paint blistering on the ceiling of the den:
Excuses gathered speed, helping no one.
So I walked up the same mountain as before.

  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

Sometimes when night turns me transparent
I want to lie on the dispassionate ground
and make of earth a gurney

Such is the way with monumental things:
to make us see and wonder.
The unreserved calm of the place

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

There’s a donkey standing in the doorway,