A sheet hung out of a window and shaken
on a morning of sunlight and warm bread
will gather such light into its folds
that it drains the street and all you see
is this radiant flapping thing, until
it is suddenly withdrawn, as if there
had been nothing but a black window space.
So the intricate green crystal suspended
at the end of an avenue in autumn
dissolves on approach, and each small light
goes out on its blade. It changes nothing;
the good milk heats in its pan, sunlight
breaks on the faces of my friends. Only
at times, but more and more, these absences
and a voice: 'that things continue as they were
is thus the more dangerous and terrible'.
...