Pray to a tree, from the window, while it is light
still, pray to its linden cloud, its leaves,
tangled crowns, diadems, branches. Pray
to the brown rivers of hair, cracks of its sleepy palms,
to the faces of it, round- eyed, scarred,
bird-like faces, pray to its apron, the sap,
the old shoulders, sheltering the sparrows, the shade,
the torn parasol, pray to all
of its shivering candles, that spill the wax
on its knees, to the stained glass of skies,
the cupola, the dim of its hollow, pray to the green
velvet, the bindings of Bibles, the psalms and hymns,
left on the ground to lie by the roots,
since the autumn, pray to the worn out gold
around the pages, turned by the wind right now.
Move your lips, whisper, repeat after him.

Monologues of fields,
and, from time to time
the Capital "I" of a tree,
interrupting
the cords underline, all
along
the real road,
from pole to pole
a strung length of longing, ellipses
of still birds, check-marks
of the flying above ones.
Italics
of the reeds by the bridge
in the air,
shedding laughter.
So,
you try sitting face forward
and the time blows
away, face after face of yours
through the half-open sky.
Then you sit facing backwards:
condensing within
the rectangular glass
freezing still.

For the stamp with a post- purple mark, for the wave
over someone's grim, royal profile,
for the few cоpper full moons, to spend far away
from all loved ones - in vain, in exile,

for the nights with no nightmares and days with no news,
for the flat mountains, moving across
the cab window, as soon as you name the hotel,
like a set on a stage, for the truth
of the plain, dusk-filled comforter and for the brush,
heavy-hanging, the root of a key,
for the palm tree, that swings its cardboard, wary palms,
for the ivory wall, for the creed

of that hopeless "no way"--crashing whisper beneath
foamy layers of light on the bay--
for all that, afterwards, let some sort of a hell
be the price. It is fine. I will pay.

Almost late.
Opening all of them, all
cabinets, drawers,
you’re delaying leaving as if
after you
walks someone silent, crying.
Whomever it is, the ghost
won't reveal itself, it will not
find you the second glove, nor will it
roll out the dusty pencil
that once was lost
in a fight with a rhyme for her name:
the poem never made it.
Aimlessly going through papers,
beginning to be
late, on the bed in a heavy coat,
you are sitting, smoking the eighth
last cigarette. The ninth.
Turning your eyes
from the mirror, meanwhile imagining well
your remaning reflection there among the things
that were ceded to the
past: fading belongings,
book piles, taken-off clothes,
all the despised objects, still praying for you.
Leaving them, leaving at last,
you step out,
letting the cold
in, lock the front door lock
twice.
And it suddenly comes to you—
late, in vain,
as that poem itself—
the rhyme.

I love to find myself abandoned, left
behind this winter, having people walk
right past, their eyewear glare-protected,
their earplugs snug.
I love a vacant chair across the table, half-
lit cafe (old movie streams above
in silence). Pair of girls in canvas stares
with knowing laughter at each other.
Love the course of things:
your absence, my retreat,
a bit descending, into loving this.
Unbearable compliance. Lonely feast
of heartache. Bloody place is closing soon, it seems.

To receive this letter,
to hear its rustle,
slithering out of the crack in the morning, is worse
than a smoke, coming from under the door.
And nothing at hand
nowhere to fill the pail.
To receive this letter, to see it coming,
falling out, maddening, creeping , to see
the handwriting,
the return address
the trembling lines such as “Hi, the winter is here with us.”
To be suddenly filled
with the wicked relief,
like a general, which has just learned
of his army’s defeat,
from a telegraph ribbon.
To sense
that it's time to take off
to leave places,
to move the troops
and objects saved from the fire,
to cry.
The winter is coming, indeed.

Long inviolable quiet.
Houses along the lake. Thus
old age appeared to the reed. And only by
its own rustling does it awaken,
lightly, without torment so that
it loses, forgets itself again.
Not tiring, blood
flows down its back,
warmed by a slanting light.
No thought of the past, no sorrow, no fear of crackling.
This is how the reed appears
to the man who stands by the window cracked open.
A breath held
for an instant by time.

In the dusk,
the windows tremble as a sweep-net
does,
letting the light in,
along with drafts and flies. The catch
will be shared by dishes
and swatting palms.
But the reed remains.

A border, whose markings upon the lake, whose lines,
cannot be crossed by a glance,
by the sole of a fisherman, by
either the night or thoughts of it.

Out comes the reed
from the title wave.
The trace of numbers along the blade
of travels, pages, spiders’ steps, years
spent by the lake,
winters spent by the window with tea …

The ray is the reed-
the very same light, that grows
with the quickness of grief.

He blocks the night of the room from the night outside.
In the midst of a frame
A collar shines dimly. He sees:
Crooked edges of bushes,
the cut
of a sawed-off moon.
The rain falls, "Like a tree,"
he thinks,
and closes the window shut.

Circles left by the rain
The turning compass will draw
clouds, lake, thunder
Then, changing angle -
Halos of moons
the circumference of the stem
at the sand.
where the roots
over a rock are spread.
The rain will be over soon.
Soaring upwards, the heron.

If you,
peering into your own face in the morning,
become convinced that old age has come,
that your wrinkles repeat those of the lake’s water,
that around your mouth the grass has sprouted,
and your weariness,
pounding the temple from within,
is akin to the one that moves the cloud, the slope
of the chin, gray as sand, being shut,
preserves the stillness, after the word had passed.
In the mirror you see yourself and the archway
into the room, timid crowd of things
crouching, leaning toward
one another, as if they are trying to fit
in the picture. And all the cracks
on the glass, on the skin of the forehead, next to your eyes,
give the mirror the look of a still-life.
They will become the same:
the window, the mirror, the lake, your portrait,
cracked in the middle.

The reed is time
and a god’s cane.
fishes’
tower, heron’s foot on the scepter,
staff of a banner of skies.
The reed is a backbone.
The spine of the lake.
Knitting needle stuck in a ball of yarn. Sheer
lightning rod, fishing pole, fixed
candle, bookmark between
the waves of a quiet book.
Yellow stitch on the back of a cape,
the spear held high by a great
horseman, ready to smite,
it’s the rope of a bell, the stretch
between the quiet and its ring.
The reed is you,
The last thought,
leaving hope.