This is my first memory:A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky wood floorA line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the centerHeavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply too short For me to sit in and readSo my first book was always bigIn the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presidedTo the left side the card catalogueOn the right newspapers draped over what looked like a quilt rackMagazines face out from the wallThe welcoming smile of my librarianThe anticipation in my heartAll those books—another world—just waitingAt my fingertips.
Everything they say and write is a lie, about law and freedom, about equality and justice, in the rubble of the bombs we make and sell, in the silent cries of limbless orphans, in the night lit by white phosphorous and the relentless sound of buzzing drones.
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile And mouth with myriad subtleties,
Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.
We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile, But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
Untitled (Flows and veils; garden syntactic arrangements of forms; they hold unknown, and therefore dangerous possibilities)
As if some little Arctic flower, Upon the polar hem, Went wandering down the latitudes, Until it puzzled came To continents of summer, To firmaments of sun, To strange, bright crowds of flowers, And birds of foreign tongue! I say, as if this little flower To Eden wandered in — What then? Why, nothing, only, Your inference therefrom!
