now let a river flow strong and continuous out of the desert grow green bouldered oasis (flat and dry of emery plateaus on my memory) water running over stone be the blood within my bone water running over stone take me and make me your own pilgrimage now that the flame has died which burned in us burned too intense for living with, beside and we have cooled to the quieter dust so comfortably and separately you and I let us lift to the wind and drift from our pyre as passionlessly and still as those destined candles of the mind whose pilgrimage through night ends with a dawn cold white and all their flames relit washday in the tropics the sun tropics down my days with heat of roof and balcony drying me out like morning's wash on mudbaked brick and shrubbery the clouds are bleached by lye and ash to make a stiff and faultless sky and spotless leaves hang limp on trees without the energy to die flies buzz... cock calls... the hammock swings with eye asquint to palmribbed light while smoke coughs up the desert air between straw sips of cool and white where cactus pricks the sunscorched haze against the rainless afternoon three zopilotes sit and wait to pick apart the carcass moon and still more scrub of soap on stone with slap and shake and fling of wrist though I unsmooth each ironed piece before night creeps along the mist only this I return to old complaints like the earth to its seasons the church has its saints and I my reasons one needs to know trees their leaves, bark and roots to perceive what one sees-- the mind has no shoots only this: the older I grow the more I feel, not know the need of believing-- my youth is leaving maturity for years I watched it grow in thought and shape a man though it was smaller then and mild I was in fact a gentle child the words it spoke were songs the air it breathed seemed sweet its eyes saw more than was to see the world I loved was meant for me each day it woke the sun and played till time had tired then put the night to sleep in bed I dreamed the sky was underhead when it was glad I joyed when it was sad I grieved joy and grief were never lonely I had myself for company the seasons came and went and with them went we two the fallen leaves now memories of years grown thick as forest trees till knowledge found us there and taught us false from true how much the simple lesson cost I gained a world not worth the lost alter ego always He was there facing me where the others could not see they never believed me He stood in the shadows like a tree posed in sunlight when the woods are darkly bright but they saw only black and white as I impatiently cried fools are you blind they looked at me their eyes were not unkind