2097. THE INTANGIBLE EFFECTS OF A DAYLIGHT DREAMING

THE INTANGIBLE EFFECTS

OF A DAYLIGHT DREAMING

(3 prayers)

To begin: we simply put ash into the code and reverse it all -

Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Maryland, Pennsylvania, together

as one. A big place of intense ideas. A plowman's paradise

of open space and careworn soils. All the same, ever.

Smoke of factories toils and creeps, low and thick

where it should not be. All the men, smoking their

cigarettes in the dark November gloom, punch

their cards and go home. The low sky smolders

gray above their tired heads and hands.

Those rivers which still remain undam'd

now run turgid and filthy and thick with

the dead. Tires and metal in mud, where

rags stiffen and cling to dry out.

-

I have not come for nothing.

I have come for anything and

all - each item in a day of new

sun and yellow light. I want

to be strong, and run silent,

as a deep-sky eagle or a hawk,

making haste to drop and catch

a land-locked prey stuck still

harsh to the tired ground.

Life, as it is, or was, is so

often over in an instant.

-

My third prayer for you is

that you will live for a very,

very long time and see

all things.