In the beginning is the paper, blank and void.
That’s the way you buy it, the unwritten “word”.
The clean slate of your law-abiding citizen

Then I reached the field and I thought 
this is not a joke not a book 
but a poem about something—but what?

Who could find words, even in free-running prose,
To describe the wounds I saw, in all their horror—
Telling it over as many times as you choose,

houses threw one square and its fellow down
to make a crossword shadow-quilt of town

his coat is fire, and I, who dress
     my fear to talk it down, want to shelter

An honest man to whom she could say
That her beauty has been a joke.

At the end of August the air is so clear and light
A body could levitate‚

The apple-stars have gently dropped to earth
And settled in the trees, stars you can taste

Laid out in detail in the tree,
The soul glittering for a while in a green body

A look in the mirror is enough
to convince us we’re someone else.