There's nothing in you,
minor versions of great sorrow,
some small confusions
ofmighty self-contradiction and baflJement:
the wrecking storm, brilliant and vast, scarred,
healed by lightning and its quick decayings;
it passed through here a life ago
or in our sleep and gave its memory
to
the frigid, rain-whipped,
cowering.. . Leave me alone, you, of no
imaginable good, with my small part and
never-to-be-repeated view of power.
Karl
Kirchwey
THE DIVA'S FIRST SONG
(WHITE'S HOTEL, LONDON)
The windows have their watered si lk
Hangings: my voice hardly comes back
To me at all. The carpet's maze
Ofbrilliant tufted wool allows
My
feet to linger when a note
Wanders chromatic or is covered;
And with the fine tip of a sable
Brush, these walls have been veined like marble
