ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 13

HAVING FOLLOWED MY HEART TILL ITS
give me...


EXPLANATION
gravity's open mouth...


THE RAIN
if it was going to happen...


TWO MEN
the man bending over sweeping dust...


10/1/04
a silence has come into the cornfields...


CERTAINTY
what lies beneath gravity...


untitled
it takes courage...


ITS USE
I turn and pick up...


WHEN WE LIVE
the world drops...


HANDS
I look in my hands...


10/26/04
while the fields are browning...


AFTER THE GREEN HAS GONE
rain through the trees...


HARVESTS AND STONE
surrounded by harvests...


FROM MY DIARY
early long lines...


FIRST WEEK OF NOVEMBER
the sky crowded with gray...


POEM WITH QUESTION MARKS
turn around at the warning sign?...


IN THE GREAT BEWILDERMENT
just as in a set of words...


11/14/04
moth so small it nearly escapes notice...


CODA
moth so small it nearly escapes notice...


STARTLED
I hadn't gone three steps before the mocking began. The bell...


LOOKING BACK
we die of everything...


TOWARDS SOLSTICE
this long night no dark...


POINTS IN THE VAST
in this dark you see...


TO DEAD PLANETS
this cold house...


MY SNOW JOURNEY
just keep walking...


LATE WINTER
my stiff legs on these winter stairs...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM STEVENS
looking up at the cloud covered sky...


HOMELAND
our inland waters slide...


SECURITY
on the way to...


2/18/05
seen from the shadow side...


CERTAIN ONES HAVE SHOWN
their heads through the dirt...


SOME EVENTS
some flakes on the way down stopped by...


untitled
what...


COLD BLUE
of the jay's back...


SIGHT
between one minute before...


untitled
that look he had...


DOWNSLOPE
the years grown...


EQUIVALENCE
in a mirror...


LOOKED UP
the dark wing...


CROWS
the call wordless...


3/29/05
the day made dimmer...


ITS FIELDS
green wing of the hill...


TO HOME
the country you came from...


THE GREAT COLLECTION
seen in weak light riding...


IT'S SENTIMENTAL BUT TRUE, I LOVE THE SPRING
branches...


THOUGH I STARTED TO SAY THEIR
I should have said...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM BLY
cold morning but he hardly noticed...


4/20/05
white hands of the dogwood...


IF GOD IS LOVE
and love is a consuming force...


ONCE AND AGAIN
the statues are not statues...


THERE
in that place...


7/4/05
the sun behind my back lights...


AFTER COMPLAINING FOR DAYS OF THE HEAT
rain and cooler weather...


IT'S TOO HOT IN THE HOUSE
I'll sweat in the shade outside...


HISTORY
once we could hear each other...


JULY
the green trees...


untitled
after rising...

Listen!


VISITING T.C. STEELE'S HOUSE IN THE RAIN


I.

the trees have had time
to approach the painter's house
and grow large
they have taken away his view
but so has death
and death was never cut down
in his time or ours

his wife's gardens have been copied
by the employees of the state
and under this dull sky
they make earth brighter than heaven

on a rock in one of them
I saw a garter snake looking at me
and wishing I would go
so the frogs would come out


II.

the studio sits just off the peak of the hill
looking like a barn under its hip roof

they let the varnish on the paintings dull
but keep the dust off his brushes

gift shop in the back his work on the walls
examples of the two hands he worked with

a smooth hand for flattering sitters
a rough hand for pleasing himself

one hand plus the other equalled happiness
one made a living (guess which)

one showed the long vistas he lived among
and nearer by the scrubbiness and brilliance

living out in the country brings home to you
his chickens posed for him under the trees

morning light slant on the pecked-bare dirt
also the oak still there a hundred years later

the old woman my guide asks how I make my living
by listening to troubles I say

thinking of my own just now thank god not great
leaving I drop five dollars in the donation box

and put up the hood on my raincoat so
I am equal to the rain ready to go for a walk


III.

from the cabin below the house
I follow the trail of silences
whose name is true
the streams it crosses
make a little noise
but between one and the other
a different silence each time

up the hill again panting
stopping for breath I see
a doe grazing on the grass
covering the family graves
she runs from smelling me