Excerpt from Another World Instead

“They say the sound is the ear…”

They say sound is the ear and sight the eye
That time is the blood
Scoring a faint blue line over the temple bone.
And it is true that
Blue veins are worn on the temples this year
(Teeth parted: the lips are smiles),

And I believe
There is no land as far as this year’s eyes look toward
Or as far as w listen in silence.
The thought that there is such a land is false.

I have not found that land.

Los Prietos, California
February 11, 1943


One Place I Saw

In that bright place the earth is always dry
Long afternoons.
The thunder-beaten mountains tower high
Like amber dunes.
One time I lived there. Wind in grooves blew down
The cavern scarp
Of cedar slopes; and shaking aspens made the town
A windmill harp.
I felt the mountains, sky. The whole earth pinned.
I went away.
Where time lay deep below the carving wind
I couldn’t stay.

Belden, California
January 1. 1945