I heaved my thick world history book
above my classmates’ heads. It arced,
flapped open, boomed against the blackboard.

Grandmomma plucked pin-feathers. I stared
into the cavity and tried
to imagine such jumbled, meaty things

I hear a river thro’ the valley wander
Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.
A rainbow stands and summer passes under,

(Nimmerwahr, 1868) Niemand’s suggested
emendation, as well as his translation based on it, will
plainly not do; among other things, the pure

Tired now, by candlelight and in the grip
Of much undoing to be done, we strip
   Away at varnish, burn old wills and deeds,

Again this first fall weekend our children dance
(There is little dancing here without our dancers.)
They’ve returned to college, adding to the distance.

My voice then quietly intoned:
Let me be transfigured.
Let me know the opulence of night.

Monuments: They arrest the eye
like these twin tongues of ruddy stone
adorning Basel’s riverside.

Our forest, our ocean, it stretched westward from the edge
of town. Knee-high at fireworks time, taller by August
than any child. Flat as a bed the prairie, spread quilt