I glory centennially slow-
ly in being Guugumbakh the
strangular fig bird-born to overgrow
the depths of this wasp-leafed stinging-tree,

  “Who’s there?”
  “Manto, sir.”
  “Manto?”
  “Yes, sir. your youngest son.”

At seventeen I’ve come to read a poem
At Princeton. Now my young hosts inquire
If I would like to meet Professor Einstein.
But I’m too conscious I have nothing to say

  Is it because of history or is it because of matter,
mother Matter—the opposite of In-
  terpretation: his consort: (his purple body lies
shattered against terrible

Books
There are books that talk about the Panama Canal
I don’t know what the card catalogs say
And I don’t pay any attention to the financial pages

The sore trees cast their leaves
too early. Each twig pinching
shut like a jabbed clam.
Soon there will be a hot gauze of snow

But here at a thousand metres and more in the Apennines
hasn’t time come round again with summer

Scrub and stone, show me
a passage through to set me free

to leave it empty on the shores of time,
and shining, will mean to live and write

I have implied
a garden. It is wish-
fulfillment.