woe our good kaspar is dead
who will wear now the burning flag in a braid who will crank the coffee grinder
who will lure the idyllic deer

A sub- or super-sensibility,
exquisitely fine-tuned, can summon up
special information, specially told:

"Oh, murder!" she was heard to mutter, or
"Mary mother of god!" You see how close
these utterances come? Please kiss me, Mom.

"Oh, how we love the glow of holy gold!"
They curled, cavorting in the evening sun .
"Oh, but centuries have passed since the rage

I said something nonsensical to them
and they mocked back, "but we're your one design,"
or "you're our one design"—which was it?

As if encarmined tulips opened
with a sudden pop like that of a toy pistol
morning surprises you again,

As in an old memoir, the rhododendrons were over.
Hunger persisted, and the light was weak—
the light of music and books, the light paintings cast

Each year the monuments grew larger.
The citizens demanded this.
As their lives got worse they wanted

Only the dead don’t know
what heaven’s like. For the rest
extrapolation is possible.

In the turbulent career of the patriarch Photius
there can have been few days more glorious
than Saturday March 29th 867.
It was on this day that he delivered his seventeenth sermon.