Colophon.

How my father thirsted for a son; And I, so leavened in that leveed place With humble history washing through the yolk, Bent over double, simple as a pike, Flapping and sounding, did not sense that breeching Out (red hot) slaked perfectly His first request of me, vegetably quenched With one bright amniotic drop, what waves Of loving were expected to suffice. Focused finally, unleashed, unseamed, The birth slip was the purest cataract: Since then his eyes were mine, and after that The forest echoes gave this family rhyme A cadence: a shape, albeit green on green, The trunks alike, the roots & branches antic, Waiting for the wagons & the saws. My father thirsted for a son, and I Have sought him hungrily. Who are we And why are we clipped (by the zippers) To the sad cedar boughs, ever growing, Tops lost in the clouds, seedsap scattered, Roots pleached in the rocks & troughs, shaking Hands I feel are his, and always in the middle, My son linking hands with his, and his with his. Fish and trees amass no appetites. Transversely split them: the auguries are always Simple and the same dumb mummery. How truant, how forgivable they are; It comforts me that in their reticence & Quiet supplantings there is eloquence: To mildly acquire wisdom, washed Down from ancient errors, and to bathe In the power of air & light & water, And drink delight in all the whims of God. End.