I've had some time to think about you
And watch the sun sink like a stone
I've had some time to think about you
On the long ride home

Well my day dreamin', people pleasin', bright on dark days girls
I fell hard and I've loved wide, and you're the rarest in the world

I've been playing dead
My whole life
And I get this feeling
Whenever I feel good
It'll be the last time

But I feel something
When I see you now
I feel something
When I see you

If you're a work of art
I'm standing too close
I can see the brush strokes

Seems like maybe it's not all that much a place
As it is a way
And ways don't ever seem to want to
Stay too still for too long

Isn't that what it's all about?
The slow trickling thaw that sets the banks in half
The sweet melody it makes when the canyons crack
I wanna give it all I've got, and I want nothing
I want nothing back

Whatever kingdom come, it probably won't come quick
No mighty clarion to announce it
No single use ark to discard in an instant
Like Theseus's ship, we'll fix the busted bits

'Til it's both nothing like and everything
It's always been
It's a wonder we expect a thing to
Stay the same at all

Maybe that's what it's all about
We keep fixing what we know is only bound to break
What's worth saving is never worth letting go to waste
I want to mend what I've got, instead of throwing away

Ain't nothing come easy
No, nothing comes quick
It's gonna hurt like hell to become well
But if we set the bone straight
It'll mend
It'll fix
And we'll be well

Ain't nothing come easy
No, nothing comes quick
But I want for you this, that you are well

I want for us this, that we are well

We are well, we are well
We are well, we are well
We are well

I was meant to love you 
and always keep you in my life
I was meant to love you,
I knew I loved you at first sight

If I abandoned love 
I'd be a man without dreams
I'd rather be out there staring death
right between its eyes now

And I can still hear the sound 
of you crying through the night
There in the opera house 
with no one else for miles

Everyone else in the room can see it
Everyone else, but you, ooh

Baby, you light up my world like nobody else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed
But when you smile at the ground, it ain't hard to tell
You don't know, oh-oh
You don't know you're beautiful

If I were a mountain, I'd stand my ground
And maybe I'd never listen
But if I were a mountain, I'd close my mouth and
Maybe I'd be forgiving

I'm not a mountain
I can't hold you on my own
I'm not a mountain
I will crumble when you go
There in the square, my arms in the air
And is it so bad to be alone?

I can do it on my own

You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,

And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,

Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot

And not to be trapped by withering laurels.

And in you I have found aloneness

And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,

In your eyes I have read

That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,

And to be understood is to be leveled down,

And to be grasped is but to reach one's fullness

And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,

You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,

And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,

And urging of seas,

And of mountains that burn in the night,

And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,

You and I shall laugh together with the storm,

And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,

And we shall stand in the sun with a will,

And we shall be dangerous.

      And he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,

      And his eyes are lit with laughter.

He is jubilant as a flag unfurled—

      Oh, a girl, she’d not forget him.

My own dear love, he is all my world,—

      And I wish I’d never met him.

My love, he’s mad, and my love, he’s fleet,

      And a wild young wood-thing bore him!

The ways are fair to his roaming feet,

      And the skies are sunlit for him.

As sharply sweet to my heart he seems

      As the fragrance of acacia.

My own dear love, he is all my dreams,—

      And I wish he were in Asia.

My love runs by like a day in June,

      And he makes no friends of sorrows.

He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon

      In the pathway of the morrows.

He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,

      Nor could storm or wind uproot him.

My own dear love, he is all my heart,—

      And I wish somebody’d shoot him.

 And I’m goin’ huntin’ tonight,

 I’ll run along swingin’ it over my head,

 And grab for that big ball of light.

 So tomorrow just look at the sky,

 And if there’s no moon you can bet I’ve found, 

What I sought and i finally caught,

 The moon in my moon-catchin’ net.

 But if the moon’s still shinin’ there,

 Look close underneath and you’ll get,

 A clear look at me in the sky swingin’ free,

 With a star in my moon-catchin’ net.

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.

and I know it’s not really life.   

The chalky green diamond, the lovely   

dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes   

multiplying around the cities   

are only neat playing fields.   

Their structure is not the frame   

of history carved out of forest,   

that is not what I see on my ascent.

And down in the stadium,

the veteran catcher guiding the young   

pitcher through the innings, the line   

of concentration between them,   

that delicate filament is not   

like the way you are helping me,   

only it reminds me when I strain   

for analogies, the way a rookie strains   

for perfection, and the veteran,   

in his wisdom, seems to promise it,   

it glows from his upheld glove,

and the man in front of me

in the grandstand, drinking banana   

daiquiris from a thermos,

continuing through a whole dinner

to the aromatic cigar even as our team

is shut out, nearly hitless, he is

not like the farmer that Auden speaks   

of in Breughel’s Icarus,

or the four inevitable woman-hating   

drunkards, yelling, hugging

each other and moving up and down   

continuously for more beer

and the young wife trying to understand   

what a full count could be

to please her husband happy in   

his old dreams, or the little boy

in the Yankees cap already nodding   

off to sleep against his father,

program and popcorn memories   

sliding into the future,

and the old woman from Lincoln, Maine,   

screaming at the Yankee slugger   

with wounded knees to break his leg

this is not a microcosm,   

not even a slice of life

and the terrible slumps,

when the greatest hitter mysteriously   

goes hitless for weeks, or

the pitcher’s stuff is all junk

who threw like a magician all last month,   

or the days when our guys look

like Sennett cops, slipping, bumping   

each other, then suddenly, the play

that wasn’t humanly possible, the Kid   

we know isn’t ready for the big leagues,   

leaps into the air to catch a ball

that should have gone downtown,   

and coming off the field is hugged   

and bottom-slapped by the sudden   

sorcerers, the winning team

the question of what makes a man   

slump when his form, his eye,

his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t   

like the bad luck that hounds us,   

and his frustration in the games   

not like our deep rage

for disappointing ourselves

the ball park is an artifact,

manicured, safe, “scene in an Easter egg”,   

and the order of the ball game,   

the firm structure with the mystery   

of accidents always contained,   

not the wild field we wander in,   

where I’m trying to recite the rules,   

to repeat the statistics of the game,

and the wind keeps carrying my words away

Today, I find my hives knocked over.

A season’s honey smeared in rivers

on the ground. I stand their domes again.

The bees are swarming in the trees and fighting

against the gale. I watch one entire colony

trapped by a whirlwind, carried out and up

across the Green. I run to follow and see them

swept over the river and caught in a maple grove.

Alone before the water’s edge,

in desperate worry for my colony,

not knowing what to do, I hold

my arms high, as if to block the wind,

and cry like swarming bees. I speak

about our apple blooms, promise

them acres of blossoms and honey mounds.

Suddenly, in one black cloud, they return

across the water, above my raised

head and waving arms, over the Green.

When I return, almost

horizontal against the raging winds,

I climb to my orchard, and find

the hives filling back

with colonies of bees.

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;

—This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.

They operated like surgeons: scrubbed and sheathed

In papery green, the room a clean cold, a bright white.

 

He’d read Larry Niven at home, and drink scotch on the rocks,

His eyes exhausted and pink. These were the Reagan years,

When we lived with our finger on The Button and struggled

 

To view our enemies as children. My father spent whole seasons

Bowing before the oracle-eye, hungry for what it would find.

His face lit-up whenever anyone asked, and his arms would rise

As if he were weightless, perfectly at ease in the never-ending

Night of space. On the ground, we tied postcards to balloons

For peace. Prince Charles married Lady Di. Rock Hudson died.

 

We learned new words for things. The decade changed.

 

The first few pictures came back blurred, and I felt ashamed

For all the cheerful engineers, my father and his tribe. The second time,

The optics jibed. We saw to the edge of all there is—

 

So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.