Didactic Piece

For R.

The eye unacquitted by whatever it holds in allegiance:

The trees' upcurve thought sacred, the flaked air, sacred

and alterable,

The hard bud seen under the lid, not the scorned leaf and

the apple-

As once in a swept place, so now with speech in a house,

We think to stand spelled forever, chained to the rigid

knocking

Of a heart whose time is its own flesh, momently swung

and burning-

This, in peace as well, though we know the air a combatant

And the word of the heart's wearing time, that it will not

do without grief.

The limit already traced must be returned to and visited,

Touched, spanned, proclaimed, else the heart's time be

all:

The small beaten disk, under the bent shell of stars,

Beside rocks in the road, dust, and the nameless herbs,

Beside rocks in the water, marked by the heeled-back

current,

Seeing, in all autumns, the felled leaf betray the wind.

If but the sign of that end is given a room

By the pillared harp, sealed to its rest by hands-

(On the bright strings the hands are almost reflected,

The strings a mirror and light). The head bends to listen,

So that the grief is heard; tears begin and are silenced

Because of the mimic despair, under the figure of laughter.

Let the allegiance go; the tree and the hard bud seed them-

selves;

The end is set, whether it be sought or relinquished.

We wait, we hear, facing the mask without eyes,

Grief without grief, facing the eyeless music.

Louise Bogan

TWO POEMS