The harrow lay abandoned

            As I pulled myself upwards

            Along the slope in flight,

            Clutching the hard wild grasses glinting

            So many hours, so much will –

            I wanted the moon to myself among the ruins, 

            To sit within that broken circle 

            Wondering about charades, propitiations, 

            Agonies, the whole conspiratorial dance

            I wanted to believe

            That Dante and Ulysses both

            Had travelled there and back

            Even though I knew they made

            Their journeys in melodic gaps

            Whether it’s your lazy eyelids

            Not yet waking, or a father’s breathing out,

            Or men and women turning heads

            While cruelties hasten nameless 

            Children to their end,

            It’s all for us to see from the edges, 

            From the lip

            My pale skin will grow cold

            By degrees, pressed against my earth,

            An ear to the ground

            For the incantation of worms,

            The distant heavens spinning

            Their dispassionate minuets, 

            Also condemned

            Almost as certainly