It had been a whole new sweetness
To find him at his desk
Half-turned from the sultry lamp
Over books, drafts, copies poised
His face sloped into light
A rapt immobility above the tireless pen

Outside, the night lay on grass
Upon soft quiet clusters
Trees, tactile against the sky, were
Ruffled out to the last twig
Swollen as if ripe with young
The air was warm, moaning, stertorous

I could feel it move on my cheeks:
Slow, hot, opaque — stirred by his hovering eyes
Shaping the earth, creating life of (wo)mankind
In its brooding, implacable image
The hushed glow rushes through his hand
Past the small of my back, past the blast
Of his urgent breath filled with muscles and with wood

Now, I hear the wood hear the silence
I see a scattering of fluctuant components:
Tousled hair, flashing tan, and words as though
It is darkness that has resolved him out of integrity
I watch them dissolve into the fading dusk
All one but neither, either but none