Charles Wright

The music of memory has its own pitch,/which not everyone hears.

Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world.Morning arrives and that's it.Sunlight darkens the earth.

Arrange your unutterable alphabet, my man, / and hold tight. / It's all you've got, a naming of things, and not so beautiful.

Each word, as someone once wrote, contains the universe.The visible carries all the invisible on its back. Tonight, in the unconditional, what moves in the long-limbed grasses, what touches me As though I didn__ exist? What is it that keeps on moving, a tiny pillar of smoke Erect on its hind legs, loose in the hollow grasses? A word I don__ know yet, a little word, containing infinity, Noiseless and unrepentant, in sift through the dry grass.

Snub end of a dismal year, deep in the dwarf orchard, The sky with its undercoat of blackwash and point stars,I stand in the dark and answer toMy life, this shirt I want to take off,which is on fire . . .

What makes us leave what we love best?What is it inside us that keeps erasing itselfWhen we need it most,That sends us into uncertainty for its own sakeAnd holds us flush there until we begin to love itAnd have to begin again?What is it within our own lives we decline to liveWhenever we find it, making our days unendurable,And nights almost visionless?I still don't know yet, but I do it.

Meanwhile, the mole goes on with its subterranean daydreams,The dogs lie around like rugs