ISSUE: Autumn 2002
A thread of fragrance, as from garlands,
As from a thousand-petaled lotus,
Lifts as I turn the leaf of a manuscript,
Until what was sky-clad,
What was over-scored with ashen earthshine—
This aqueous sphere, this reciprocity of light—
Dims, and I am left in the dark, vexed,
A minor participant in a great event,
A reader in the dark where the planets pass—
The air hyacinthine, the air a fissure of rain.
No day arrives like scythes on an axeltree.
No words lift of their own accord from the page.
