Page 18 of Collected Poems

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plowing the vast acres

of heaven and take it

out on her in burning

darts of anger. Long

accustomed to such caprice

she waits patiently

for evening when thoughts

of another night will

restore his mellowness

and her power

over him.

Question

Angled sunbeam lowered

like Jacob's ladder through

sky's peephole pierced in the roof

to my silent floor and bared feet.

Are these your creatures

these crowding specks

stomping your lighted corridor

to a remote sun, like doped

acrobatic angels gyrating

at needlepoint to divert a high

unamused god? Or am I

sole stranger in a twilight room

I called my own overrun

and possessed long ago by

myriads more

as yet invisible in all

this surrounding penumbra?

Answer

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