Throw Your Shoes Into the River

697

There is a volcano in the bedroom
made of topiary and fumes
spilling prayers along the patterns
of the night rug, and the nearest pasture.
There is a library filled
with obsolete encyclopedias
and weapons with such range and power
that they raise questions
to the doubtful nature of ambition

There are miles after nocturnal miles
when you sense that green has a number
and that all prospects have become visible
and are rising.

698

You may be lost in elliptical murals
pictures of seed and mist
with sparkling water and eccentric lamp
with which you are protected from
artistic necessity

Your fingers are soft prisms
through which no light passes undetected
the color of your heart undistinguished
from the purple of wine

699

Transit the celestial garden until
deposited at the gate of superstitious rivers
the water and field
the grassbox and the hoe
the intellectual haywain
attaches bells to your brush and pen
and allows you to achieve longevity
without wisdom

The snapshots of constellations
provide no clues to the chainless cycle
and so become as useful as sundials at night

Artists freewheel through the sunset
a nightmare landscape of pursuit and possible
without syllabus or corncob
without religion and beyond desire.