rise from the narrow couch and descend barefoot on the stone floor to Lenten fair, the daily reading picked up, laid down, meditation, words like discipline and rebirth the bitter changes the sloughing off, a fresh encounter with solitude, old…

That left-over halt… It’s where, years ago, Four of us at the end of our student days Got out and walked for hours in midsummer heat Down lanes and bridle paths and unmarked ways Through waist-high grasses, warmth-holding wheat; Or…

She stood there in her best blue wrapper and head-tie, the silent Zenobia, and the sea poured out of her. She stood there until the ship had pulled out of harbour, out of sight. Still, she stood there, listening to…

It isn’t New Year yet so happy what? Till then it’s Boxing Day every morning. Empty bags hang off the radiator. Chilly: hot                         cold                                                 Cordelia position.                                     Did it mean we didn’t love each other that morning he…

  Sunset an orange line drawn carefully and shaded in against the horizon after the row of palms (soy un hombre sincere de donde crecen las palmas) morning after the night rain sierras newly washed rise rise and fall deep…

The year began with baleful auguries: comets, eclipses, tremors, forest fires, the waves lethargic under a coat of pitch the length of the coastline. And a cow spoke, which happened last year too, although last year no one believed cows…

We have blind spots. Five times at least I’ve asked you to explain parallax; you say ‘zero sum’ is meaningless to you. High in the Alps, I’ve held out for this room against Americans whose sleep, now, will toss uneasily…

For those who jumped ship and drowned because the herding of people was intolerable If you get my drift. She, not containing oceans, nor a spice triangle, won’t boast that cinnamon could launch femme announcements over the bounding main: set…

for Gwendolyn Brooks and Kiah A little girl twirls in the airport, in the line for New York. She looks like five and already cocks out her chest. She is adorned with womanish things, pink plastic bangles and ruffled socks….

A beautiful cloudless morning. My toothache better. William at work on The Pedlar. Miss Gell left a basket of excellent lettuces; I shelled our scarlet beans. Walked out after dinner for letters— met a man who had once been a…

My Dear, Today a letter from Berlin where snow – the first of ’38 – flew in, settled and shrivelled on the lamp last night, broke moth wings mobbing the window. Light woke me early, but the trams were late:…

I All the way to the hospital the lights were green as peppermints. Trees of black iron broke into leaf ahead of me, as if I were the lucky prince in an enchanted wood summoning summer with my whistle, banishing…

It exists in knots but nobody will say  how it appeared there, why, who snitched  and stitched it up, or when.    It makes the shark’s teeth cut as they do  when they slit enamel into bone easy  as plugs into coy…