Goodbye Over Stanford

From damp darkwood, 
to tangled trail, the lamp 
and candle of the past 
is burning bright,
though Nevermore is chanting, 
and will see the last light after me, 
these visions at my eyes.

The same sweet waving grass
on bald gold hill, where wind-stalled hawk 
goes up, up, then falls aflutter, 
down to kill, 
to pause, to float 
above my lofty walk, wide-winged,
only to sink into the darkest valley,
the least of earthly creatures
dangling from his claws,
and time is at my throat.

Can there be metaphor of soul,
or merely blunt surprise, in rising 
with such ease to lofty skies, 
as red-tipped tower sinks,  
and burning rooftops melt,
though at the ridge   
I’m sure I’ll see 
the ocean and infinity,
all past and future at my knees.

But there is only mist 
and living memory, 
a wreath of dead professors 
mouthing saucy Chaucer,
or a strange cacophony 
of ancient Greeks,
or telling me that Christ 
was really Plato 
in his bloody spikes,
a terrible absence at my head.


Go down, then, go down,
forgive sun-twisted juniper.
Forgive sweet-scored cicada song,
the purple-shaded lanes of eucalyptus,
winding through these overheated hills.

Embrace the faithless charm of bliss
and then (at least in part)
forgive the faultless death of time,
the birth of beauty at the heart.