Shadows
Everyone knows
the great energies running amok
cast terrible shadows,
that each of the so-called
senseless acts has its thread
looping back through the world
and into a human heart.
And meanwhile
the gold-trimmed thunder
wanders the sky; the river
may be filling the cellars
of the sleeping town.
Cyclone, fire,
and their merry cousins
bring us to grief—
but these are the hours
with the old wooden-god faces;
we lift them to our shoulders
like so many black coffins,
we continue walking
into the future.
I don’t mean
there are no bodies in the river,
or bones broken by the wind.
I mean everyone
who has heard the lethal train-roar
of the tornado swears
there was no mention ever
of any person,
or reason—I mean
the waters rise without any plot upon
history, or even geography.
Whatever power of the earth rampages,
we turn to it dazed but anonymous eyes;
whatever the name of the catastrophe,
it is never
the opposite of love.