Quilt of a Formal Pattern

As tenderness, in its gravity, pulls us on
Driving home into the cave of the valley
Past black oblongs of wood,
Past grey fog-squares
Blurring the patchwork
Distance from where I am
To the house, a yellow cube;
So also, on this other checkerboard,
There are dark squares and red:
Solitudes of the heart, privacies
Which cannot be invaded,
Blue forbidden rooms
However much, on the plain of our life together,
Like colors in a bolt of Madras
Cloth, longing may lead
Us on, overwhelm, flood us, and we bleed, bleed.