Any clear thing that blinds us with surprise - Robert Lowell

In a bole of burnished coppe,r I lean my face against the parchment Of beech, and think distant thoughts Of America, or rather the maps That stand for America - one of which I opened at the tail end of a winter, Shivering mute - a tracery of veins On the prairie of a waist, and cities Dotting distances, like moles along The gulf of a sleeping throat.

Now I find myself completely lost (or more Precisely at a loss) in this mapped America. Memories, and the labels that I applied to them have gone awry like a scrim of puddling rain drops Tell me, do the beeches remember, later, these leaves they shed like A trail of hot tears? Tell me, do you remember how I mapped you, blinded & blind, in that far away night, Adrienne?

Karajan directing Movement 4 of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" - perfect music for a "ya Hussein!" morning.

(1) The difference between solitude And loneliness - a maple in fall Light, and a maple in snowy shade.

(2) The frayed yellow Virgin's cord from Brazil finally broke today. How forlorn is her sparrow wrist.

(3) For revelers on the train, Isn't tomorrow too another Mask to wear?

(4) I would be lying to you, love, If I didn't confess my vampire Blood quickened for her too.

(5) In a night filled with poems, What are friends but their Beginnings and ends?