Cole Swensen
from Stele

a man across the green field walks                             to darken
the orchestra                   small in diminishing greens, shades

of green that attain a black                      half-way to the edge
the field, now felt as breath                    diminishing the man

walking with his head down               as if studying the grass

 

 

and if he'd turned and called                          down a long hall
interlocking memory is                   a mechanism of memory

that dovetails with an ornamental lamp         in the corner
or a gesture always meant                                    to write back

before you could turn around      and find the street empty
and the empty field                            and the doorway barely

a series of photographs                                  of a different man

 

 

when light on the face of a stone                          and this too
is a language                                         is an articulated series

arranged in empty space                                     is arranging
emptiness to resemble                                   the recognizable

face that lacks a name                           and so its open parts
unreasonably shine                                       kept on, kite-like

or other animal of air                             standing in the way

 

 

speaking that is not a stone                          but you turn it
over in your hand                                   the one that counts

the stone back to all                             the faces are missing
on its surface                                   any face records a series

of imagined islands                     we are trying to separate

 

 

and so the man                                          pulls up his collar
and walks a little faster                                  there's a train

distinguished only                      by its trail at the horizon
like a cloud written                               as a single sentence

speeding backward                    the house seemed smaller
than the loss of distance                             he was thinking

that the very idea of distance                        was growing
unlikely, given                       the way the sky was filling

 

 

streetlights and the walking men  they must be distant
are the distance                                      so that the rhythm

keeps you awake                                 the long curve of bay
also walking                                   though the stark sharps

of scattered lights                                 that awaken a light
on the water                                              of a different color

seems to enter                   the book on the table in flames

 

 

standing man with sail                            against the sun
a brittle coast in rains                            the drifting folds

against the small sounds        against the aching seam
opening against                         the farther dark against

the wall in intricate detail small    small against time

 

 

the monumental body sways                under the force
of sheer color falling sideways                        into a face

receives as is                      the coming answer which is
to be inhabited by them               as only the dead can

to be lived in                                        and softly walking
with them inside                                 doing the walking