INSCRIPTIONS

                            1

Stones time shines at uselessly.
Wall built between two absences
that covers nothing now because it has hidden itself away
under ivy, in its rubble, even in the wind.
The shut gate of a garden
that never was, or that trailed off among its ruins.
Wall of dust, centuries spread out before us,
barring no one's way, in the passing weather.

                            2

All down the wall of day
the world rains.
All night the waters crowded in.

                            3

Once, at midnight, suddenly
the music struck up. It played on
as it must have played before the world
knew music was the keening
of the wasted hours, of beings
reeling from one instant
to the next instant on.

                            4

Across the space of a second
time
lets light fall before all things:
the faithful plain
of dumb objects that watch me—
but with something in them
that is an eternal voice.

                            5

Half-swallowed in the shadows of evening
the tiger counts his stripes,
his ferocious stripes;
everlasting legion of his image,
grass,
the rasp of dead leaves, bars
that make a tiger of him.

                            6

Sea, shut your eyes.
Let your look
turn toward the night
so deep and wide—
like another sea of foam
and stones.