The Sense Of The Sleight-Of-Hand Man

One's grand flights, one's Sunday baths,

One's tootings at the weddings of the soul

Occur as they occur. So bluish clouds

Occurred above the empty house and the leaves

Of the rhododendrons rattled their gold,

As if someone lived there. Such floods of white

Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind

Threw its contorted strength around the sky.

Could you have said the bluejay suddenly

Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays

Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.

The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.

To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine

And pines that are cornets, so it occurs,

And a little island full of geese and stars:

It may be the ignorant man, alone,

Has any chance to mate his life with life

That is the sensual, pearly spuse, the life

That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.