… by excess of history life becomes maimed …

There is nothing, Nietzsche,

in this night but the fallen moon

and the carcasses of deer

by the side of the road.

Nothing but cold and the bare trees,

a meteor in the sky and the long

ride home to the empty house.

Even memories are limping,

Nietzsche, old Friedrich, old specter,

the country lost, the whole world lost

and too little time to recover.

Once in a woods I thought I saw

deep water, but it was only my need

hobbling into autumn.

There is nothing but watching

Virtue end her abstinence and God walk away

through steeple-stern landscapes.

There is a noise outside

and someone parking illegally,

a handkerchief waving

and willows dropping their leaves,

a phone ringing

and no one, Nietzsche, answering.

There is the country of kindness

into which I am moving,

abandoning my umbilicals –

my mother’s arms, my father’s voice,

the glue of name – until there is

no other way but her whom I love

calling me like a flute or a bird

out of the wilderness

and the storm of history

dying east of my body.