I
Remote,
as an ambition to join the circus.
When coming true is only a return,
powder over the footprint,
then I suppose one is no longer an exile
but merely remote
and strangely content
with his ambition
to be exceptional enough
for the circus.
II
It can be seen
if you hold your breath.
And likewise if you withhold
your thoughts.
That sapling doesn’t appear in the air,
grown from the top down,
a nerve system in frost.
Breath is all a change within you,
the same change,
that shows what newness means to a man,
same newness:
one continues his life as originally.
III
A scene that does not admit
of a rare circumstance
is all distance.
On the streets, then,
we have law.
And for our own discipline
learn dance.
Where you are distinct
is close,
you watch a reindeer
nip young plants under the snow,
chew and swallow.
You desire that removal
be no less intimate.
IV
Were there a king still
his realm would be here,
unnoticeable royalty
and cruelty
awash in the massive politics
of the poor-as-snow
recognizing each other’s glint.
But there is no king.
The earth opened up for him
and he replaced
metals
to be refined.
Crude king, crude metals,
crude as ice before snow.
V
Light
and the years it keeps flooding,
open tide,
vacant monument.
And so I shiver, yes, sometimes,
because the light is so broad
like an animal’s back,
hard working,
cold,
a small harvest of wheat.
When the knife cuts
through the gray loaf
I feel I could be dawn
with its general tenderness,
dressing a continent,
meeting an eye.
VI
It feels as if the ocean is near.
One stares into the possibility
of its expanse.
You are a small boat cut loose.
Wherever you go
is deep.
Flow? Influence.
The loved one’s arms
that have to be crossed,
peripheral seas.
The setting out,
landscape in a skin.
Numbness:
ability to keep a secret
from pain.
VII
What you labor over,
astute between walls
thick as classics,
your smoke,
your computation,
would seem to occupy all directions
you believe a man can move in.
The snow light
smooths the skin
and you are able to live out
your enormity,
with the example first
of green tree after green tree,
then with their blessing.
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