Blue Hour (6 page)

the boundless etcetera of indifference

the breath of the invisible

the bridge that doesn’t touch the other bank

the buildings of the center city no longer

the candlelit stairwells in blackout

the cedared hills, smoking orchards, and the rivers of ill luck

the cemetery workman’s wheelbarrow

the chandelier of water against stone

the chorus of mules and roosters, goat bells, little cries

the cinema, trip-wired, the small-arms fire

the click, night

the click, night, pages turned by a wind and taken

the confessions written in gunpowder and spit

the danger of premature good conscience

the dawn sky at morning pearl and smoke, the trees stripped

the day has not yet come

the day will of all days be ordinary, its weather various

the dead were left among the living—there were no questions

the dead were washed and dressed and touched

the
densissimus imber
of the rain

the dreams are a coffin with an open window

the dreams of a mind in the grave

the early summer’s green plums

the empty wet shirts on the line waving

the endless, unbroken lines

the evacuation of ghosts

the flautist’s breath in a stairwell

the flumes of white phosphorus marking the city

the for
and
for

the forbidden world hidden behind it

the four-a.m. bombing of a newspaper office

the fragility of social orders

the furthest edge

the future destroying us

the ganglia of a train map, metastasizing cities

the going-forth, the as-yet-cannot-be-heard

the greater and lesser wings the ground luminosity

the hand moving of its own accord across the page

the happy life life itself

the hidden world and its inhabitants

the hole of my mouth

the hole where my ancestor stands burning

the house, a white portrait of our having fled

the hushed chill of such a wind

the
I’s
time, in which things happen

the ice of reminiscence submerged in time

the immigrant disappearing into a new language

the informant’s diary of his whereabouts

the ivory of ice on the rivers

the japonica’s shadow on a telegraph pole

the life that would have ended then goes on

the light in these old photographs is a palm of rice

the light of a pocket mirror moving through trees

the little notebook of poems in the pocket of a corpse

the Lumière camera

the man tipping his hat sadly

the man tipping his hat sadly as if to say goodbye to his own mind

the mirror in her eyes giving himself back

the moon a bone-cap of ice or ivory

the moon in its clearing

the morning’s cold light on the blankets

the mortar smoke mistaken for an orchard of flowering pears

the name I am becoming

the nine lights of thought

the open well ending in its moon of water

the opening of time

the past is white near the sea

the past, which is our present

the peace of a black-windowed warehouse

the peace of the hay

the
pleroma
which she did not desire for herself

the plummet of a star from its darkness

the question speaks
the very language of lack

the rain falls lightly now

the rescuers lift from the wreckage a child no longer a child

the revenant whi
spers: forgive me if I am wrong but I could not sleep

the roads issuing mist

the roads rivered with sewage and tea-colored rain

the roofs have fallen, field flowers grow in the rooms. nevermind

the same clicking of bare limbs in wind

the same rose sold to every mourner

the secret police having risen to the stature of petty thieves

the sedimentary years

the shacks of
le quartier de la guerre

the silence of a new language

the soft houses of heaven

the soldiers’ moonlit helmets

the soul cannot leave the body of a suicide until she comes

the soul weighs twenty-six grams and is migratory like the birds

the soul, enamored of greatness

the soul with its sense of destination, the soul exiled, a stranger to earth

the space between events infinite

the stench of soap boiling at the edge of a village

the sting of bleached linen

the stony space where all of this happens

the stories nested, each opening to the next

the story of empty rice sacks

the street’s memory of abandoned shoes

the streets running with a sweet gray stench

the sun a monstrance

the sun moving toward
Lambda Herculis

the sun will turn into a red giant, and then into a white dwarf

the sweet stench of gangrene, a cloud of flies, in its hand a child’s necropolis

the temptation of temptation

the three hidden lights beyond the grasp of thought

the tomb into which we escape

the trains. sometimes a silent coupling

the trees: almond, annatto, sweetsop, banana, monkey-bread, bay rum, sandal bead, breadfruit, yellowsilk, camphor, candle

the trees mortared into flower

the trembling of river stones, the ignition of spirit, the firing of human thought

the trip wire in white grass at one with the footfall, the latch

the truck-rutted fields the burnt sorrow

the twenty-two bones of the skull

the uncertain hand of a lost spirit

the vanished present visible on earth

the wall of white sand and poisonous mill wastes

the way one could bathe while still covered by a square of cloth

the wet paper of flesh draped on brittle bone

the what is? gives the wrong answer

the what is? has ruined thought

the white train

the white-boned noon

the window covered with a wool blanket

the woman in the flowered robe mad with fear

the woman in your arms a lighted bedcloth

the world an accident

the world as it emerges

the world’s ensouling in a gallery of sadness

their bedclothes soaked in music

their bruises, aubergine

their refusal to accompany us further

their souls exist as their body

their souls shuttered against hope

then at dawn through the cedars

then for an hour we slip photographs from their frames, strip the walls, toss what had been our life into shipping crates

then phosphorus fell silver on the city and rained on the lettuce fields

there is a reason you have lost him. for the rest of your life you could search for it

there is no absence that cannot be replaced

there is no reason for the world

there was black corn in the fields, crib smoke, and bones enough to fill the sack

there was no
when
there

there was nothing that wasn’t for sale

these are my contents

these paving stones this hymnal

these ruins are to the future what the past is to us

they bind them in rags

they climb out of the river and blacken its banks

they died along with anyone who knew who they were

they fell from heaven to earth

they go on past grief and give me a sack of beans

they lived in the carcass of the sports coliseum

they looked into the camera, into the future

they will gladly go to the precipice, but where is the precipice?

thinking
against
the world

this end and the beginning within it

this is a
musée hypothétique:

this is a transit camp, a squatters’ camp

this is how things were for us then

this is the city. this is a photograph of the city

this is the city. this was the city

this only death can write

this open-air asylum

this ossuary of world, what is the phrase for it?

this reversal

this shattering of indifference

this sudden incipience of event—

those things are obvious which are invisible

those who have entered and have left unharmed

thoughts turned back into ink and paper

throwing light upon light

time—“a severe border guard”—becomes imaginary

time lapsed in one country is only beginning in another

time, to which we are exiled

to abandon yearning for the body

to be unquiet

to be visible to oneself

to become endlessly what one has been

to cross the field without breaking the snow

to enter into itself and to stay awake

to expose ourselves to whatever may happen

to forget once having known it

to hide, safeguard, entrust to a protected place

to know not only what is, but the other of what is

to know that the great bell is the great bell

to remain haunted

to rescue the future

to say nothing without confining ourselves to silence

to search like a sheep for salt

to see or to perish

to see other than from without

to see the world as it actually is

to walk the quays among the executed

to where a drawn lamb is hanging beheaded

today the world is stiff and locked in place, pines still, skies droning, snow mounded, and everyone has gone “to work”

together into the blue but unbroken perishing

too many bones in too small a soul

torn curtain, shutters in wind

toward what end? what uniformity?

tunneling between worlds

twirling organdy dresses waving goodbye

two children in his arms

two discontinuous realms

un enfant qui meurt,
wrapped in a trouser leg

under the blind sky’s surveillance

under the whip, invisible, in the not-there

under what conditions can we speak of

une enfant qui meurt
wrapped in a trouser leg

unspeakable in language

unspoken thoughts, leaving us in their proximity, alone

until dawn in the fire tower

until this, that

vesture, vigil light, votive

visible only to God

walking the streets, tented in bedclothes

war-eyed in the warehouse of history

war
no longer declared but only continued

warning us of its nature and our own

washing its windows until they vanish

was this not to know me?

watch them appear to recede: what are we seeing?

water calm to the wind line

water rosy with iron

waters filled with human belief

watery cathedral, a gold wash of light, a trembling—

we are as paper against the walls of the passage

we caused each other

we drove through disappearing villages

we hid among tangerine peels, lamb bones and blue figs

we lived in tents of fog

we returned to the border and walked toward the checkpoint

we take our
citron pressé,
your hand mine, and the clocks spin in reverse until you are floating in a flat green boat

we take our worldly goods, your hand, mine, and the clocks spin

we were spoken into being

were we not?

wet bouquets at the kiosk

wet paper of our flesh

what crawled out of the autumn wood was dementia

what did we retrieve? empty spectacles?

what do these questions ask?

what do we have to forget?

what end? what uniformity?

what fragmentary light?

what God does or does not forgive

what is closest to us

what is it?
must be answered
who is it?

what sees us without being seen

what waking life is to the dream

what was before, imperfectly erased

what were we doing as far away as this?

what you see is the beginning of life after death

what you see you shall become

when did we know?

when I opened the door

when it was possible to walk across the river

when one could hear, behind the curtain, the whole thing

when the thing had gone beyond the limits of a room

when this sunlight reaches the future

when time seems to us a
queer thing

when we wake from our deaths

when you know the worst, you can return to cut stalks of iris in April

where at least one loveliness wanders

where else would they have fallen?

where everything destroyed was left intact

where he looked

where the helicopters landed, lifting trees from the ground

where the ore is crushed into yellowcake

where the sickness knew us

where there is some message to convey

where they go without sleep

where thinking takes place we have a right to say

while I lived in that other world, years went by in this one

while out on the cobalt sea the ship turns toward us

while we watched transfixed the repetitive novelty of death

who cries for the jasmin as he digs them up, and carries with him a can of black tobacco and a yellow finch in a cage

who if rope were writing would have hung himself

who in mirrors saw a strange woman

who no longer realized I was there

who returns from the journey with her eyes ruined

who wanted only to retrieve a few invisible souvenirs:

who wrote on the window in lipstick
I will never forget you

whose white hands lift from this river the sudden flight of cranes

why do I seem no longer alive?

wide-planed wind of the sea

wild doves in a warehouse

willow, windthrow, winter, wisteria