ISSUE: Summer 2001
Through the open window the rangy beams
float down sleep, clarifying bone
as varnish wakens woodgrain.
From ancient myths mute dreams
rise bluely into the air . . .
as imagined smoke trailing tunes
from woodwind instruments
and Rainer Maria Rilke
ever brooding in his gauzy grove
O the music and the roses and the fear!
The face is pale . . . the face is gone; only the
impress of a garden,
and overhead a singing of “Amazing Grace”
trailing a musty dolor before the dawning,
before the bold reminding green of morning . . .
And everyone everywhere walking his way on tiptoe,
breaking bread with his shadow.
