All at Once
(Circular movements of reaping in
stubbled cornfields
where the scream of the blue banded hawk
pierces the sky, and)
From somewhere vast a voice
Comes rumbling into my dreams of flight;
And taut as the backward strung lute
A body arches under me.
(gasping I lie on the shore, watchingI have yet to write the book of that body:
the speechless waves receding.
The sand is damp and smooth beneath my naked body -
between the sea and the sand is a time for thought.)
Rich in the promise of a change, the
Grey ghost of a formless text, waiting
For me to create it again.
(I lay down in the cornfield; small creatures
explore my stillness,
the banded hawk plummets
to mark me with blue armlets of bruises.)
I was falling dizzyingly
Into an illusion
You have broken -
For that I am grateful.
1992
