SUMMER IN A VERY SMALL TOWN

The small towns of the strange middle of our lives

remain small

Streets wintry

even in summer

Here the old forget themselves in their own stories

the moon rises

a tall tower lifts its silver planet of water into the sky

and the children believe in God

and the cold gardens of his weather

What makes of such poor wisdom

the knife of the will

of such poverty the flower without memory

we do not know

Tonight men wire their bodies to grenades

jets sizzle blind from the deck of carriers

In the streets something dies

If our heads flamed here once

If together we rolled

and the sun rolled

like a pride of lions through the summer grass

and our teeth clicked with a fever

it was another world

where the day was called by your name and mine

and love was another name for sight

Now the cat stirs beside me

in the deep hair of its sleep

and my envy stirs

that last of my rights

even that frail mania

Too far arrived to go back

I see that I am what I always was

that ordinary man on his front steps

bewildered under the bright mess of the heavens

by the fierce indecipherable language of its stars