From The Kenyon Review, New Series, Spring 1991, Vol. XIII, No. 2
In God’s night you do not know
what comes next.
Past the window
scurry the leaves of summer,
born of the awesome wind.
They drag me to a freedom that turns from me,
standing blank and undone with pain.
Back in the heart of the country,
a dark wind is bent on pushing things around.
I cannot explain this burdensome silence,
the heady, infectious smell of blood,
the cry of the years in the night.
Tonight, the shadow of my brother follows me,
bearing blood on its hooves.
My mother turns pale and crass.
In the dark someone called God
runs his vain fingers
over the treasures in his planet:
relics that could still behave like men.
