ROBERT
KELLY

1.
I have to cleanse my stables.
Too many hoof prints
in the dust, footprints,
too many names
scrawled on the stalls,
too many names in the index.

2.
One sunrise should do it,
because the sun is always
she is good for forgetting.
One sunrise, one prayer,
one newly-painted white wall,
a wet kiss offered freely
to the passing wind
and then it’s done.

3.
Then the bare building
will be mine again—
‘mine’ means free of my own
history, free of my wants,
wins, failures, ‘mine’ means
just me, alone with what will come.

4.
But the old smells
still linger, stirred up
from the floorboards,
dirt of the yard, by the very
wind I hoped would heal.
And heal it does, but fragrance
takes a long time to go away.

5.
Stallions and mares,
those who galloped,
those who slouched along
dragging a cart full of manure,
Carry me to glory!
I shouted as I rode,
but they who could drag
boulders out of earth
could not drag me out of me.

6.
So the stable stand empty now
and people ask me what
that building is, is it a house,
who lives in it, is it for sale?
Everybody wants to get
out of the city. But not this house
if house it is. This house
is sacred to its absences.

A hot wind for a wonder
or call it warm to be milder.
Slim woman in blue satin
singing on stage and call it time,
sky paling.

2.
A person
is mostly geography
anyway, sail the sea,
climb the massif,
remember the forest
where thought sleeps
and seeks out all
the elsewheres in the world
even before a single touch.

3.
The pale act worked,
a cloud has formed,
lightly, shouldering east.
Remember the signs
we saw in stores, Look
but Don’t Touch. why
did we pay so deep attention
to such light-weight philosophy?
The trees know better in breeze,
it’s morning, at least
wave back at their signally leaves.

4.
I felt this way
in California once
for no good reason,
It must have been
just being west
of where I am
and here doesn’t
fit on a plane.
So somewhere else
makes someone else
and the wind was warm.

5.
Look in a book,
find the old name for now,
and where her altar was
when we were sensible enough
to offer on it marigolds and memories
and pour out on its stone
the sweet wine of forgetfulness.
6.
I keep trying
to keep it from
being a love song,
but keep failing.
Your face when you’re sleeping
on your side, at my side,
turned towards me,
dreaming of an island,
and I see you right then
soon as I open my eyes,
gasping at the sight,
I lie there, a child
waking in the temple,
nothing to know but love.
I am, where you are.

Whiffletree
sky dark
wagon full of beets

*

it could be Jordan
shallow sluice
cool to my ankles
stood on sun-bleached stones

*
everything is next
nothing is now
can’t help crying
*
child means
water still tastes good

*
nothing comes to mind
o I get it
the trees are still asleep

*
they dream
or drink
the morning sun

*
never talked to them
they talked to me–
am I still like that?

*
the moment came
the black cow
turned and looked at me

*
taste of milkweed sap
forbidden
always risk of knowing

*
scrupulous churches
why so many, people
only one priest