​There he was, Claude Rains, with Margot,
I thought I’d seen that scene before
And come to the end of the movie,
You know the one, where she’s heartsore,

And he is suave and lies gives up lies,
Then lies again. It is summer time
And here is Hunter Mountain and
Its stones, and the same hot climb.

Imagine driving all the way 
To Tennessee, and when you get there,
You find yourself back in Chicago. Your shoes
Have been placed, toe-in, in the Frigidaire.

That’s all right, it wasn’t for nothing,
We met the Three Furies, we got to know them,
And out there where the field is darkest
Are two trumpets. We’re supposed to blow them,

It’s the only way to cord your muscles
In your old age, that and bending
Over a crinkled page of Talmud
(Or of Borges?), and comprehending

That the Kumrat Valley is not the pass
Before the ultimate mountain, there’s no
Ultimate mountain. And when we’re tired,
We tumble back to the cold and the snow

And trees that died before they bore fruit,
Burnt black, and a stone hut
With the same dirty floor, a hearth but no heat,
No way to get the old door shut,

Because we didn’t come for the shale
Or the sky or the mountain, we came to go,
A topography that is not still, 
A covered bridge and blazing snow. 

​I remember every road, also 
Every stone, everything 
I could and couldn’t understand,
And see, or think I see, the beginning--

Or the ending?—topographic-
Ally speaking. And the bones
Themselves become the flesh, the stal-
Actites become the sky, groans

Themselves become more than a song.
Every road is a pilgrim’s road
When you are traveling on the pilgrim’s
Road, whose adjoining fields are fallowed,

That faces a height that we do or do not
See. And the more we walk, sometimes
Catch a lift, we value the Syrian
Thistle, the gray lizard that climbs

The gray pine, on the way to the streets
Of the capital, which stretch
From Montezuma to Betelgeuse.
The wind is so soft, so steady, the ketch

Barely slides but it slides,
It is a wind that contains,
If you bend your ear, every
Murmur, the roar of airplanes,

Ants skritching across terrains,
Atoms that make no sound, foul
Conversations, mirrors of hope
And pain, until the stern Owl

Nebula, until the crown 
Of the tree that makes its own space,
Everything looped together,
Stumbling to its own place,

Nothing is missing, not even a rotten
Tooth, an imaginary number, a hurt
Too deep to feel, a forgotten blue-
Berry, a revelation, a concert,

A try at a mustache. Look at
The toil of man, the Outerborough
Bridge, every urge that wipes
Away the mind, every thorough

Dedication, the viciousness,
The foolishness, the petty anger
Or the mix of fury and self-pity,
Or in the midst of danger, languor,

From the Mongolian plain to the shaded street,
When the government cracks, when bitter water
Spills, what is the cause of this terrible
Spin? Every color, the tauter

Nerves, the solace, the texts, the times
Of insight with disgrace, they lead
Our little bodies to proceed
Beyond the truths of Ganymede.

​Yes, in the middle of the foggy night,
Where the road sign that says west points east,
Where you began walking in speculation
And gradually, the lies and darkness increased,

There are lights that cut through all the grease,
Men along the road who should be kings,
Whose word should be law and resolution,
Whose lungs are lit with living, dazzling

Clarities. You can see the same
Higher up, you can meet these hidden
Men who, inside themselves, are giant,
(Only confusion says that it is forbidden

To see) the might of humility,
They too are yearning to be free,
And that freedom comes from the marshy dark,
The fibrous tangles, the debris

Of brambles and scarp. They can see
Holy freedom, and how strong
She is, walking on the trail
That wraps around the bluff, no wrong

Invades that space, behind the pines,
Behind the ridges, behind the lakes,
Where mountains lived, before life
Congealed into laws and aches,

And when we roll upon the roads
Of holy algorithms, then
Holy lampposts radiate the light
That tumbles from the first amen.