Cid Corman
June 29, 1924 ~ March 12, 2004_______________
for all
poets
At the shrine
on the altar
not one relic
but in one way
or another
I remain.
A LORD will dismount
at the imperative of
the cherry blossoms.
DON'T LET the poet
get you down
when he rages
His letter kills but
his spirit
resuscitates.
AN
effulgence
a glory
a subtle
insistent
falling a
lucid rain
a torrent
guttural
clear and shrill
a run of
color con-
fused and con-
fusing a
sky full of
them! Alone
on the downs
on a bright
windless day
NOTRE DAME
Where Roman law made aliens bend
Stands a church, original, vital,
Like Adam once, all nerve and mettle,
Muscles aquiver at the end.
From outside you see the inner plan:
Flying buttresses forestalling
That mass from breaking against those walls
Upholding the vault's outstretching strain.
Labyrinth, impenetrable wood,
Soul of Gothic's rational abyss,
Egyptian might and Christian meekness,
By slim reed oak, by plumb line — lord.
But the more, fortified Notre Dame,
I studied your immense example,
The more I thought: one day I too will
Build from meaningless a dream.
TU FU is long dead.
Leaves have fallen —
leaves will fall.
Every
thing in his words
on a far lookout.
MAKING
of rock. Letting as
Michelangelo
does the prisoner
becoming the rock
escape.
MOVED — three blocks up
and around in
a row of old
houses under
the bells of St
Stainslas and
cherry blossoms.
Must go get a
sink stopper and
a curtain rod —
if life is to
be tenable.
HERE I am
like a leaf
falling or
fallen. Point-
less as one —
as any —
all. Holding
mother's hand
though she's gone.
WE COME out
in the end
at the end
beginning
to see where
the stars are.
THE HILL
beyond the
gate
the temple
almost
mist.
__________________________
from TU
Cid Corman
The Toothpaste Press
1983
