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From John Ashbery's collection "The Double Dream of Spring." |
They are preparing to begin again: Problems, new pennant up the flagpole In a predicated romance. About the time the sun begins to cut laterally across The Western Hemisphere with its shadows, its carnival echoes, The fugitive lands crowd under separate names. It is the blankness that succeeds gaiety, and Everyman must depart Out there into stranded night, for his destiny Is to return unfruitful out of the lightness That passing time evokes. It was only Cloud-castles, adept to seize the past And possess it, through hurting. And the way is clear Now for linear acting into that time In whose corrosive mass he first discovered how to breathe. Just look at the filth you've made, See what you've done. Yet if these are regrets they stir only lightly The children playing after supper, Promise of the pillow and so much in the night to come. I plan to stay here a little while For these are moments only, moments of insight, And there are reaches to be attained, A last level of anxiety that melts In becoming, like miles under the pilgrim's feet. |