1.11.2006

One of the old, "pre-epic" poems in Way Stations, which (in very partial illustration of previous post) contains a kind of vow to Mandelstam:

 
The wind exhaled, this world
sprawled – a spring disaster, flocks of embraces
in the garage, under the oil refineries
hospitable sirens, waltzing on broken silver.


And night deepened around the temple,
a yellow-black wafer, crust for the swans;
and the wind circled the olives, a morning watch
all night by the Kedron, all day by Euphrates.


And we'll meet again by the wintry river
where we swaddled the sun in a double wreath,
cedar and lilac, tangled in a knot of beaten
gold – sea-roses, breathing in Jerusalem.

(sounds like an OM poem passed through an Eliot-modifier)

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