REMOTENESS

Nothing from you at all. Your being seems
a cloistered garden where, in the afternoon,
an infinite presence is a haunting guest,
deep in the moment's utter silences.

The leaves tremble. They and the crazy wind
flee through the garden where the spirit rests
like an affliction, hidden and accursed,
fastened for ever in the sobbing shade.

And now and then the slanting western sun
velvets the blue majestic cypresses
over whose crest a wing hangs motionless,

all outcry null and muffled in the mist;
and bitterness flows toward oblivion
upon the peace of the tremendous heart.