That my love of truth 
will endure one more
long night of
drawn curtains,
and muscatel razing.

That this song
in the field
is that same one

love of beauty
love of truth

that we sang on a
broken pier into
the green yellow sea
of a full moon
spring night
while water was on water
was on wave.

(Do you hear me calling
to the seagulls?)

That this dream
will whither and die
before one more tear
drops
from heaven to earth,

love of the jaunty saxophone
love of the misery makers
love of mankind’s misery makers

That we shall sing
the misery song
with the chorus of
children
in a cornfield,
on a warm Iowa dusk
fall
and with

when it comes from above
when it comes from above
when it comes from above
it is meant for us below

brilliant intensity,
we will engineer one more dance
for

love of the mystery makers
love of promises

That the one promise
unmade will
be the one left unbroken
that the sea memory will
merge with
our cornfield song
and make one night
last.

love of the maker
love of truth

That it blackens
behind 
points of light,
that it is only
blackness
and more blackness
behind the points

love of the loss of beauty
love of

That the blackness has shape
but no meaning,
that we will sing
the song of children
and we will
dance the dream dance
of misery
and mastery of the dream
makers. 

two
That the desertion 
of the father 
will turn cement thoughts
to glue nights
from this solid wood
porch
and its neighborhood overlook.

and of the father
so as the son

That the leaves of this
last uninfected tree
will heave its branches
cleanly
without blood
through the plate glass
and in
reaching across rations
of sadness that cluster
in this room around
yellow photos
of a man on a bike
with a small hat
peering out from 1955.

love of the father
love of the son
love of the sadness makers
the jaunty tunes of tuneless
jackhammer afternoons

That the 14 year old son
put to work in a cold
post depression 
prairie town
will make pains to reconnect
those parts that frayed
as the spring turned to summer
turned to fall

love of emptiness
songs of the unborn silence
makers of the jaunty silence
the 

and that the new son failed
to measure up
to the dream
that died,
or that was made to die.

That the phone call
will not create the desert
place in the mind
that the dream of the loss
will be replaced
by the reality of the loss
that the loss itself
will replace the knowledge
of the loss
that the loss itself will
make itself the reality
without the pain
of the loss
without the loss

love of the mighty sadness
the tune of jackhammer
bakery afternoons
and of abandoned 
ice rinks and

of self.
That my hands
thrown up in terror
will come down at
last 
in prayer.

of the tuneless songs
of the last man
to hold a son in his arms
of the love
that is loss

three
That my secret devotion
will absolve
the desire to have it.
That the last memory of this night
will leave itself
drawn and dirtied
on the front step,
allowing the clean part
entry to this

love of the wife
love of the jaunty silence

home.

That in turning myself
one last time for home
I will find
the constellation of
Orion
left standing,
bloodied, perhaps,
but standing amongst the
ether
pointing,
interpreting the galaxy,
singing his song

of loss of life
of hunting for the loss
of life
of the jaunty silence
of loss and desertion
of the pained expression
of the silent
spinning of his sword

of the gold shatters of
mornings above
the prows of our
neighbor’s homes.

That my one good soul
will meet with my one bad
and form a bond out there
on the lawn of the new home
that the heavens will not open
nor even exist
until this one soul finds
the other,
until the one finds the unanswered
question of the one.

loss of life
loss of hearing
loss of the voice

That my knees
will buckle at the appropriate
hour
in proper recompense for the
indefensible actions
for the unmistakable
sound the heart makes
in passing
like trains
like madness
like sadness hurtles
its way down murky tunnels
of heart’s passageways

the misery maker
loss of the soul
loss of the making
of sanity

and the pathway to redemption.

four
That this ending
reveals newness
despite its lateness
coming.

That this invocation
shouts out warning
of the impending change
of motions.

That this drawing
madness from sanity
leaves the shell
whole and earthy
but without the center
of sadness

love of the jaunty misery makers
love of the father

in me
of the.