Now I am sitting
Behind filthy nightscapes, in the echoing room provided,
Among a few retired ornaments.
All the words have been emptied from the books.
The heating
is
hopeless at any hour. I am
Eating one of my last apples and waiting
For my departure to overtake me
With its empty windows coming up
Like cards, the game
Always turns out the same,
Mother, Father, Luke .and John,
My line, my sign, my love,
Think of the cards that were held out to me
And I had to choose this one.
VILLA D'ESTE, TIVOLI
Push past these watery curtains
and you find
W. S. Merwin
a dream, fantastic grottoes of the cardinal's mind
where sea-beasts frolic in the rain.
This is the savage well controlled,
this other
world of aspiration, for here we need not bother
with nymphs who leave the woods defiled,
or satyrs grazing on our lawns,
vulgar, wild
and uninvited. This is our solitude self-willed
from intruding eyes; here, we're born
into ourselves again, like moss
and rainbow
rising about Bernini's monsters; and here, we show
the gods a civilizing force
