RENÉ CHARdid not pursue their advantage, refusing to conclude the match. Now the two
fighters’ battered heads nodded against each other. At that instant the first must
have purposely pronounced into the second’s ear words so perfectly o√ensive, or
appropriate, or enigmatic, that the latter let fly a lightning bolt, abrupt, complete,
precise, which knocked the incomprehensible fighter out cold.
Certain beings have a meaning that escapes us. Who are they? Their secret
resides in the deepest part of life’s own secret. They draw near. Life kills them. But
the future they have thus awoken with a murmur, sensing them, creates them. O
labyrinth of utmost love!
—nancy kline
To Friend-Tree of Counted Days
Brief harp of the larches
On mossy spur of stone crop
—Façade of the forest,
Against which mists are shattered—
Counterpoint of the void in which
I believe.
—william carlos williams
Room in Space
Such is the wood-pigeon’s song when the shower approaches—the air is
powdered with rain, with ghostly sunlight—
I awake washed, I melt as I rise, I gather the tender sky.
Lying beside you, I move your liberty.
I am a block of earth reclaiming its flower.
Is there a carved throat more radiant than yours? To ask is to die!
The wing of your sigh spreads a film of down on the leaves. The arrow of my
love closes your fruit, drinks it.
I am in the grace of your countenance which my darkness covers with joy.
How beautiful your cry that gives me your silence!
—w. s. merwin