For today at least the snow has gone
and the backyard is awash with daffodils.
See how the sun has come to court you? Quick,

It could be like one of those dreams
where you must carry water in your hands
for half a mile to put some fire out

Lacrimae of the body, for whom do you weep?
What are your griefs, fears? Do you have a favorite
someplace whom violent motion makes you remember?

What keeps it going? What does the body
enjoy? At the end it can hardly hear much,
taste much, see much, smell much and a lot

It is hard to think of the people of Thebes
as being fortunate (so much time has gone by),
but they possessed a machine of exact measure:

Forget the way the flesh beneath the rind
waits with moistened lips for the hovering spoon,
smiling, yielding up each perfect round;

Discretion is the very soul of your pants pocket:
first, because your pocket hides whatever you put in it,

The haystack’s painting hangs in the Met;
the painting of the haystack, that is,
the one by Monet, not by van Gogh,

I can hear the prayer echoing inside
my head, but cannot make the chamber speak.

The suspense is exquisite. A twitch at the last step
intimates that year’s particular rapture: