Life has no score. The song of life
is on the lips of an aged woman bent
upon a bus stop bench, its street light notes
on telephone wire ledger lines;
is in the rugged shuffle of a janitor's shoes
on descending steps, its clef a weary mop
propped against a stairway rail; is in the whistle
of a little boy sitting cross legged
on a railway siding, its sheet the earth
itself erased by his gritty palm.

Life has no score. The song of life
is handed down from sun to sun
to rest behind a cardboard will work sign
on an exit ramp, is buckled in a top coat
chasing a late to work bus, is put out
on the curb sitting on clothes, is holding
an old man's finger where the cars speed by,
is boxing shadows outside a cafe.
The song of life is mourning still a loss
too great to bear borne still each day.

Life has no score. The song of life
has yet to be composed, its author
not yet known, its horns contending
in concrete echoes of a city's sprawl,
its winds sweeping in on freeway veins
from distant furrowed fields, its strings
hanging from the sky onto high rise crowns,
all assembling still. A curtain will
roll back, a stick will rap, the instruments
will breathe the great breath before the song is played.

We have not spoken since the long, long days,
the lazy days grew indolent and fell. Somewhere
in the piles of days the wind collected our words
rested too. If I thought of you
hour by hour and fell beneath the weight of thought
in the piles of days and words
what you are to me you will not know
you are still when we are out of words.
If a cold light now lays on the windows,
caught my breath in crystal my silent breath
exhausted night's labor must contain my thoughts of you
every part of you drawn in escaped unseen.
If today we spoke, I would not say this is you
this every breath sustains me past the hour
longing wakes but the empty things we say,
the glib and empty things I try to fill
a single word, a single solitary word.

Quietly the shadows grew one into another as the day withdrew
softly from the hollows of the trees until at last it stood
far away. The night crept up the lawns and rested
on the porches and peered into the windows.

The night came through the screens with the easy Summer breeze
and made us idle with its foreign song, chords of gray,
melancholy dissonance, its song that makes an end of songs.
Then we wanted nothing of the stuff of life however dear.

Yes, it pried the pens and hammers from our hands and wrought
with them nothing. It took our many conquests and made
one of them, shared by great and small alike that one ambition -
sleep. We were turned like strings around our newel posts.

We climbed the stairs and darkness followed, and darkness waited
while we bared, and darkness swallowed our last light.
We lost possession of our world tonight, sold it for a song,
rid of it as long as we could sleep.

I am at the fire as I would likely be, come the chill
hours of inactivity, having gathered up the dead
detritus from the yard and put to match some old
wood rested on it. The lifeless pile took flame
with greed, as if surprised by need of it,
and gratefully gave itself to be consumed by fire.
For a time the world is all ablaze, all red
and yellow hot upon my face, flush with pregnant
sparks giving birth to ever greater iterations of fire.

Then I think let it all burn, all that is useless;
let it burn, all that is cast off and idle; in my mind
an eternal flame, even as the wood before my eyes
melts to ash and climbs to heaven on a pillar
of smoke. Ash settles down to earth with me,
ash in the air darting through shadows, bitter
on the tongue, gray in the hair. The universe
is cold; the space between the stars blank.
The bodies of the universe are all ash.

As long as there is flame I stay with it. I inch
closer as the cold elbows in, jealous of my place.
I stir. Chars catch a breath and come to light,
soon fading, embers weary of their work, blinking
heavy eyed, nodding off to sleep. When at length
all that can burn has burned, refined to its last
remains, glowing scarlet crystal, intensity wanting fuel
denied, I leave it to its vultures, satisfied
all becomes at last what does endure.

Rusty nail by rusty nail the floors come down. Floor by floor
the old men of the old town slip away, and leave old shells
like the stone bread of Pompey. We board these windows
and bolt these doors and slate them in the young sun
for the hungry cranes, but I return in the twilight
of going home traffic when five o'clock lets loose blue collars
to fumble through the ruined rooms of time gone by,

I kick through our broken bricks. Their red dust stains
my shoes and wears on my cuffs. A hopeless hearth,
discarded news, a crippled doll with matted hair
and I all share the crumbling of the day, but only I
shall not remain come compline. Neither can I
pack these walls with me. So this is adieu
to former strongholds. To our old fidelity, adieu.

It is not fit to go forth less than brave, for
they built seven cities over Troy, seven worlds
not knowing where they stood so long the first
could not be said to be. The docks of Caesarea sleep
in the sea, and tourists sit for lunch
on the prone pillars
of Jaffa.

Butterflies kiss the sage, where sun drips off primrose
into mute lily horns who know but cannot say:
This is the day. In yonder Sycamore a cardinal's question
is answered from afar: This is the day. Sleep no more
fields of green. Arise and be heard all who dwell within.
The night has been, has poured out all its darkness like water
onto parched earth that cannot be gathered up again.

When with eyes as good as closed we peered into the night
what stain had we beheld? Was it ink upon our canvass,
dripping from the trees, running on the lawns and fields,
the gardens deep in slumber, staining dark foreboding hills?
"Be thou, " we cried, "a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our eyes."
What then should we have seen who could not see,
or known who could not know, what has once been made,
once beheld, once loved, what was once our own continues still?

This is the day. Let all who have a sound to make proclaim.
From among the pines, from within the thickets come. Let each one
make his song. This is the day. We shall not sleep therein.
Arrogant and proud the night, let all the living cry.  Profound
the darkness. Grave the depth of night. Become a dew
for unction of the lilies who know but cannot say this:
This is the day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

The houses of my Babylon lean upon each other.
They will not fall, not until the last hard hand
quits the last hammer, not until misfortune
loses prey, not until the least last child
is gently packed in wool and sent to play.
Sooner will you hear their see-saw hinges wail.
Will you then ask of them a song of home?

The windows of the houses of my Babylon
lay bear the walls around them. Who but gray
grandfathers marking time press their noses
to the glass? The visions of their lonely vigils
fade, half life unrecorded, shadows on parade,
whispered secrets kept secret. You will never know
with what intent they overlook your passing through.

Rain tears on the windows of the houses
of my Babylon, the bath of unattended panes
dropped free from heaven. They will not wash
clear. They will ever wear the haze of tainted air.
You think this stain the mark of unrepentant sin.
Who, then, gives the absolution of so many
brown-burned fingers that will not scrub up?