IV
More than a child, less
than a woman, as a weed
Flung from the rock on Ocean's foam to sail
(aboard the SS Byron)
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest breath prevail
direct from Piraeus to New York,
from there by rail to Montana,
she crossed herself
and crossed herself
and crossed herself again
as her life's line crossed
with America's rivers:
the Hudson
Susquehanna
Allegheny
Maumee
St. Joseph
Kankakee
Illinois
Wisconsin
Mississippi
Minnesota
Red
Souris
(what did Cokboy think)
when he heard this one?)
the Milk
(along the Hi-Line OK had helped lay)
and at the place of its cataracts,
the river whose name in Greek
sounds like "smudge."
At the great falls
of the Missouri then
it would begin
under the auspice of $5
found in the train seat,
foretelling a full measure of days
poured into the new mold of earth
water & sky—
days that would fly
as if metered by the train's
clickety-clacks through the lane
of fence-posts & wires
flashing by like a song
on destiny's lyre—
a triumph?
(if it can ever be said to be)
of the active life:
Martha, Μαρθα
thou art care-full & troubled about many things
μεριμνας χαί τυρβάζη περί πολλά
the priest's intoning of the Lord's
words fluttering like moths round
her light head filled with signs
and fetching anticipations...
VIII
Sundowns softly
across the bay behind
Provincetown—then Boston
light blue a bank of clouds
that rises like a mountain range
behind the lower Manhattan skyline
and washes the gothic towers of Brooklyn Bridge
pink as the cliffs at Solana Beach.
In Oklahoma & Montana
it inundates the western sky
with waves of firelight & emberglow
then runs out beyond the great divide & Pacific coast
towards the eastern shores of Earth
and leaves in natural darkness
the continent thought to begin England anew
and end in the dream of an island paradise
a pure product of man's work
especially spectacular to the death
as in Roebling's for his towers to stand
firm at last in the East River's tides
or, within a year, Custer's to stand
and take aim for one last shot at—
In this dark in their beds
as the galaxies recede
Americans wait & hope
in every tongue
not for the bombs or rockets
but for the touch that gives proof through the night.