I who was born to believe in the power of law
                                 was maquis at heart.
I who wrote that a tapestry stretched to the moon

     The slippery piglet, clear across the way,
has had my tree cut down.
He rang a man who rang a man who knew

When I was green,
Green as the light beneath these leaves,
I used to say:

Take Antoine Guillemet instead.
  When he was following that dirty gang
    I thought we lost him. Blinding poppies,

Dark vines snaking the hillside where
The Sabines lived, where everything slants,
  Where a village clings to the hill

1.

In retrospect I'd been waiting
For years, never speaking.
Never needing to learn. I listened

The newborn bear has no shape.
The mule rarely gives birth,
The viper only once.

Once, in a room no bigger than the bed, 
I made love with a girl.

                                                *

Have you ever made love with a girl?   
Once I hadn’t, then I had.

Of the vastness of clouds
We knew nothing;
We slept in houses underground.

The highest point for miles but it's nothing
Like the natural world. Too steep for vistas
So it's valueless as real estate.