And he woke again like a thief undetected, invisible therefore,
and therefore free. The bronze horse’s hoof stood raised for
apparently ever about to trample beneath it the cross of wood
faced with tin half beaten half
tooled to a filigree that said, or
seemed to say, that’s what it takes, a violence, to get at last
even this far, mere decoration, nothing close, for example,
to those late afternoons of the sun parsing the dead bamboo
like fidelity itself when fidelity means for once what it’s
always meant—one thing,
and the truth another—no,
I’d say it more was like seeing for the first time from sea
that bit of the land that you’ve always lived on, and watching it
slowly become more small, until maybe you lived there,
or didn’t, here’s the sea
anyway in front of you, here’s the rest,
(the waves whispering, as if waves could whisper), here’s
what happens, not what’s meant to happen; nothing’s meant to happen…