Under the olive trees the light pours out its seeds,
poppies appear and begin to flicker,
burning the oil that feeds their fire;

It began with the deer, dead in the water 
Just off my parents’ dock, 
And then there was a procession of horses,

        After the snow, after carved corpses
exposed the icy survival of the last 
     Donner Party members, the Belgian

Before God created people, 
he made animals,
unnamed and marvelous,

(What a Trojan horse) 
thought Matrigupta, 
rewarded for his verse 

Here is a little book of instructions. It says care
must be taken. For instance, a form of health as a
version of vanity (as when a poor stonecutter set up 

Morgan retreats. He retreats into Schubert,
into his journal, into his imagination, his silence.
Away from the personalities, the out-of-order,

Across the sea at Alexandria,
Shallow and glittering, a single shroud-
Shaped cloud had stolen, leaving as it paused

            A               a
                mammo           pappo
                   gram          gram

My beloved Helios is leaving, see
how the hem of his robe slips from the tent
as Chaos’ daughter approaches, such