The Pines

Fell from length,
with no purpose

but the thing
laid out. There was

a fire here,
the world held

blackening
to our breeze

through this geometry:
the cul-de-sac,

taken on
the domesticity of dogs,

exhorting cornsmut; they've
browsed
the life away

from these woods,
passing through.

They shimmy
to attention,

the new tilting
a little from the old.

Which were
those miles

and are,
were it all

encased
in a vivarium.

And reduced,
to be rebuilt.

Coarsened by need,
cut from avoidance.

I had a dream last week that partly contained the line breaks from this section of The Pines Vol 2. I reopened it to check it out today & saw all of my notes from teaching it this summer. They were so focused on the themes of the class, so defined by a linear was of understanding the "use" or "role" of fragmented poetry in the creation of a sense of self. Funny that the class discussion of The Pines was far more focused on the things I love about this volume, the beauty of the words & how this beauty relates to the sense of beauty & loss of the natural world. The relation is not referential but played out in the space between the fragments, the space between the word & that which it refers to & the understanding of how the word & image fills space & time.