Communication to Leon-Paul Fargue

I do not know what we say. I know that your poems

Move on my mind as the broad palm of the fisherman

Blackens the brass-shine out on the sea pool,

As the branch blows over the dazzle of sun on the window.

Do we call it remembering, Fargue, when the earth's dark

Dissolves the prism of air for us?

.. . Nigger leaning

at noon over the aft-gunnel, sun-glaze

gone where the shade falls, where the floating

shadow...

Reef far down and the wrecked hull-

rocks shelve into blackness . . .

or the stars

under the shadow of the earth, like

minnows under an old keel. . . .

And where the elm blows over the blind glare

fading upon the window glass-

and they, were there,

the pale forgotten faces,

they were always there.

We had not always seen them, but they saw.

I do not know what we say. Your poems are not like

Names, or an old scarf, or the date on a photograph,

Or somebody speaking Scotch in the crowd at the corner,

Or burned leaves-not as we say "remember."