TO BE A LANDSCAPE, TO BE A MAJESTIC LANDSCAPE
on the drumlin topped with firs that froth with cones;
a snow-white landscape, with veins like the wind’s footsteps,
to be a landscape, a noble landscape crossed
by a river that carries a cluster of children on its ice,
circusing, spinning,
but also falls, green, over a driftpile,
like water-cloth skirts, water-scarves;
to be a landscape on which an old wool mill
quietly turns its axletree, itself silently
staggering world without end;
a landscape where hungry crows can cry;
a wolf-nighted landscape, a pre-sun landscape,
a landscape for whirling a carouselshaft,
for holding an observatory, for holding a glassy arch,
to be a landscape, to be a majestic landscape

lying on the museum wall of a village
a radiant landscape, framed by fading boundaries;
coins and bones are bleaching in an array of showcases,
tiring tourists are yawning;
to be being, knowing that no word
will be found to name you; knowing
that it can never be found;
to be a landscape, to shed snow-light;
to be a landscape, keep the peace after a snowstorm
until someone whose heart does not have
enough room in his chest runs across the room
and stabs a knife into the canvas.