September 1961

This is the year the old ones,

the old great ones

leave us alone on the road.

The road leads to the sea.

We have the words in our pockets,

obscure directions. The old ones

have taken away the light of their presence,

we see it moving away over a hill

off to one side.

They are not dying,

they are withdrawn

into a painful privacy

learning to live without words.

E. P. "It looks like dying"-Williams: "I can't

describe to you what has been

happening to me"-

H. D. "unable to speak."

The darkness

twists itself in the wind, the stars

are small, the horizon

ringed with confused urban light-haze.

They have told us

the road leads to the sea,

and given

the language into our hands.

We hear

our footsteps each time a truck

has dazzled past us and gone

leaving us new silence.

Ine can't reach

the sea on this endless

road to the sea unless

one turns aside at the end, it seems,

follows

the owl that silently glides above it

aslant, back and forth,

and away into deep woods.

But for usthe road

unfurls itself, we count the

words in our pockets, we wonder

how it will be without them, we don't

stop walking, we know

there is far to go, sometimes

we think the night wind carries

a smell of the sea…