Consider how the moment enters itself
when you're not looking, scarcely
paying attention, imagination
trusting what comes
on the surrounding air, sweet
or cool, whatever wafts
through. Your whole body
participates, yet, as in dream,
hardly moves, nearly
paralyzed with pleasure.
How you are taken into and out of
yourself at once, language
a braid, unbraiding, so that
what the fairy tales call tresses
loosen in your hands, brushing
your eyes back to time,
that slow surprise.
. . .
To a new friend you write,
"To multiply the harbors
does not reduce the sea."
Why do you not find
the only harbor there is?
No, you're perverse, inclined
to let your words
scatter like bread
over the waters,
and then to think
they'll transform themselves
to inlets and coves
the heart of anyone
might row to.
No, I am not jealous.
I want, simply, for you
to be original and mine,
not turn to me late
as to any port.
Trinity: Poems
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