The beloved moves through the world
4 The world so huge and dark
5 Going to the reading
6 You went to the reading
7 Expecting so much
8 Such a shaking
9 The poem didn’t express
10 That desolation is the door
11 Some days it’s all fuzzy
12 Body of the beloved
13 How lucky we are
14 For me, my brother
15 Invisible distance between
16 Words not just the empty
17 Hold off, rain
18 Where did the beloved go?
19 Even before speech
20 The motions so cautious
21 To see the beloved
22 Were we invited?
23 Acrobatic postures I enjoyed
24 If a peach leads you into the world
25 Autumn
26 Sudden shower
27 Do words outlast
28 Did the beloved die?
29 Why should it all
30 Black marks
31 No longer a part
32 You lost the beloved
33 And if not you, then who?
34 An anthology gathered
35 His song was about the world
Links
PART ONE
Resurrection of the body of the beloved,
Which is the world.
Which is the poem
Of the world, the poem of the body.
Mortal ourselves and filled with awe,
We gather the scattered limbs
Of Osiris.
That he should live again.
That death not be oblivion.
And all the body’s
Miraculous parts sdadjkas dasdasjasdsad
Scattered across Egypt,
Stained with dark mud.
We must find them, gather
Them together, bring them
Into a single place
As an anthologist might collect
All the poems that matter
Into a single book, a book
Which is the body of the beloved,
Which is the world.
For all its tumult and suffering?
Who wants to leave the world,
For all its sorrow?
Not I.
And so I come to the Book,
Which is also the body
Of the beloved. And so
I come to the poem.
The poem is the world
Scattered by passion, then
Gathered together again
So that we may have hope.
The shape of the Book
Is the door to the grave,
Is the shape of the stone
Closed over us, so that
We may know terror
Is what we pass through
To reach hope, and courage
Is our necessary companion.
The shape of the Book
Is dark as death, and every page
Is lit with hope, glows
With the light of the vital body.
I
