Angel Eye of Memory

Turning, returning on world winds that know

The unraveled matter of a time ago,

My bondsman angel with spread-eagle eye

Reminds my wounds, unwinds my memory;

Within a cleft of sleep

Where the abhorred affections, arm in arm,

Lion and tamer come,

The ways I went, the days I could not keep

Stand still: wrapt in perfect ice I lie

Creating love out of a masque of clay

And see my arms, like vines, embrace a city.

O lion locked in yesterday, O lost

And by the years' five-shuttered cages last

Of all my lives, be fed on memory

Though, starved, you waken and go free;

Of your own flesh and blood,

The hand that froze mid-air, the heart that sank,

Make present meat and drink

That by your providence the sweet ghost laid

In love's misfitting batter at the door

Closed fast upon the only traveler

Hand would warm at, heart be lifted for.

Indentured angel, show me where I go

Though in long dwelling I imprison you;

In ponds of sleep, in pools of sense, over

Whatever solvent water you will hover,

Trouble the seines whose turning

Pictures on the water's winding wheel

Show now and always how all

Traveling is a leaving no returning

Though hands like spindrift fall awash before

Wheel, gear, piston rod and wild propeller

Rifle the air to make farewell forever. _