Listening to Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary,
Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire and Manic Depression,

I. THE CRAVING
                The Odyssey, Book Twelve

I needed a warning from the goddess
and a group of men to lash me to the mast
hand and foot, so that I could listen

Long ago, someone
told me: avoid or.

Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—

It is not this world, then, to blame, with its red
and blue stars, yellow pears, green apples
that carry a scent which can move you to tears.

More and more creased each year, worn paper thin,
and still it longs for them all.

These mail-ordered tulips,
shockingly gaudy,
open and close, re-open, re-close,

Here, where the rivers dredge upthe very stone of Heaven, we name its colors—muttonfat jade, kingfisher jade, jade of appleskin green.

The windows stream with fish,
the gold luck of carp,
the tiny silver luck of minnows,
while the earth gives back her wealth

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.