Chime of Twenty-Six Bronze Bells

Bring the bells down.

Let their hollows fill with loam,

the long vibrations undulating through the layers,

a rhythm deeper than our own, beyond all hearing.

Earth music. Ten thousand years would not suffice.

And you? Abandoned in that region from which none return-

what music would you bring along?

The wind and not the instruments, the wind

among the yellow leaves and memory,

that goes on ringing in the brain's deep passages.

As for the dog, with her mottled fur,

her amorous nose, her wet,

imploring eyes, suppose she was not

wrenched away before her time,

but left to sleep a winter longer

by the fire, a hand scratching her belly

while her hind leg measured time.

Perhaps she heaved a last great sigh

of happiness, and after was admitted

- to her master's tomb, in final debt of fealty.