Raptus

The door to the past is a strange door. It swings open and things pass through it, but they pass in one direction only. No man can return across that threshold, though he can look down still and see the green light waver in the weeds. Loren Eiseley A door opens in the wilderness. People cross through it—bloused women families Acquaintances friends all the ones I have loved Sleep-walkers night-walkers each dazed and shorn— Street aurous with ice, a snowfall scratched into Moons—and everything I’d known— Inside the bleak floating light of my lungs In the capillaries of my eyes a blood Glancing through the hatches— If I said I would always be grateful If I lied or touched with spite If night is just a foamline of shadows Though we were both lost—the door Opening—the fear of being shown Whole to the one who must love you still— And stopped as if on a walk to say Look at that and what matters what really counts And I’ll tell you everything if you promise I promise I stood at door and behind me heard Snow-plows scrape against roads At the center of night—unknown to yourself And the word I said out-loud to no one That meant it was all to no purpose The word for the desire inside destruction For everything that can never be brought back— Loose snow blown hard to each bank And the common reel of those who To avoid one extreme rush toward its opposite— Snow blasted to piles—and never opened up to Anything that could reach me until you reached me— Which hours belonged to us When was I unknowingly alone Why did you always return to walk here a path Behind my closed eyes shedding salt Dry snowfall and sticks—still were you here With me I might say The moon rose in the casement window The red-haired boy across the street has learned to ride his bike There are still picnics there are fountains And the world I am leaving behind saysOne learns to see one learns to be kind— I closed my eyes I closed my hands I shut down the fields in my arms The cattle on the plains veins ditches Blue ravines a gray bird Sailing through a poplar brake kids Throwing snow I closed the last swinging juncos Sheep wool caught on barbed wire I closed Fumes and clear patches of sky I seized The river the town I shut down The hard muscles of sleep farmlands Warming under midnight salt-lights scruff-pines On the ridge animals scattering across slopes I closed The smooth bone of evening a storm On the hills white and noiseless spindled Prairies where I was born I shut I seized The clouds I closed in anger—fervor—ardor