The
curtain around her and streams. The room fades. Then coming
Forth magnificently the window blurred from within she moves in a cloud
Chamber the tree in the oak-currents sailing in clear air keeping pace
With her white breathless closet-he sees her mistily part her lips
AJ
if
singing
to
him
come up from river-fog almost hears her as if
She
sang alone in a cloud its warmed light streaming into his branches
Out through the gauze glass of the window. She takes off her bathing-cap
The tree with him ascending himself and the birds all moving
In
darkness together sleep crumbling the bark in their claws.
By
this time he holds in his awkward, subtle limbs the limbs
Of
a hundred understanding trees. He has learned what a plant is like
When it moves near a human habitation moving closer the later it is
Unfurling its leaves near bedrooms still keeping its wilderness life
Twigs
covering his body with only one way out for his eyes into inner light
Of
a chosen window living with them night after night watching
Watching with them at times their favorite TV shows leaming-
Though now and then he hears a faint sound: gunshot, bombing,
Building-faIl-how to read lips: the lips of laconic cowboys
Bank
robbers old and young doctors tense-faced gesturing savagely
In
wards and corridors like reading the lips of the dead
The lips of men interrupting the program at the wrong time
To
sell you a good used car on the Night Owl Show men silently reporting
The news out the window. But the living as well, three-dimensioned,
Silent as
the small gray dead, must sleep at last must save their lives
By
taking off their clothes. It is his beholding that saves them:
God
help the dweller in windowless basements the one obsessed
With drawing curtains this night. At three o'clock in the morning
He
descends a medium-sized shadow while that one sleeps and turns
In
her high bed in loss as he goes limb by limb quietly down
The
trunk
with one lighted side. Ground upon which he could not explain
His
presence he walks with toes uncurled from branches, his bird-movements
Dying hard. At the sidewalk he changes gains weight a solid citizen
Ooce
more. At apartments there is less danger from dogs, but he has
f«
those a super-quiet hand a hand
to
calm sparrows and rivers,
And
watchdogs in half-tended bushes lie with
him
watching their women
Undress
the dog's honest eyes and the man's the same pure beast's
Ibnprehending the same essentials. Not one of these beheld would ever give
llima second look but he gives them all a first look that goes
