I was trying to love matter.

against my father, notfor what he was–for what I was: from the beginning of time,in childhood, I thoughtthat pain meantI was not loved.It meant I loved.

winter should have meaning for you.I did not expect to survive,earth suppressing me. I didn’t expectto waken again, to feelin damp earth my bodyable to respond again, rememberingafter so long how to open againin the cold lightof earliest spring–afraid, yes, but among you againcrying yes risk joyin the raw wind of the new world.

to be weeding. You ought to knowI’m never weeding, on my knees, pullingclumps of clover from the flower beds: in factI’m looking for courage, for some evidencemy life will change, thoughit takes forever, checkingeach clump for the symbolicleaf, and soon the summer is ending, alreadythe leaves turning, always the sick treesgoing first, the dying turningbrilliant…

He holds meon his shoulders in the bitter wind:scraps of white paperblow over the railroad ties.My father likedto stand like this, to hold meso he couldn’t see me.I rememberstaring straight aheadinto the world my father saw;I was learningto absorb its emptiness,the heavy snownot falling, whirling around us.

I have come to see it as that.As a steam of cries.So much pain in the world – the formlessgrief of the body, whose languageis hunger-And in the hall, the boxed roses:what they meanis chaos. Then beginsthe terrible charity of marriage,husband and wifecliming the green hill in gold lightuntil there is no hill,only a flat…

I will not speak again, will notsurvive the earth, be summonedout of it again, nota flower yet, a spine only, raw dirtcatching my ribs, I call you,father and master: all around,my companions are failing, thinkingyou do not see. Howcan they know you seeunless you save us?In the summer twilight, are youclose enough to hearyour child’s…