For us not now philosophers’ distress
so elegant and rectified,
a cri de coeur in fortified undress,
missing all the loss we find
as our former selves pass by,
thick with others’ thoughts and words.
Still, to say a true thing that will belie
our dark surmise that in this world
meaning is not in doing or what’s done–
wind shuddering the trees,
some turbulence, and then it’s gone.
In the garden of the asylum
Your mind is the wind in the trees
And you are that distant traveler
Pulling the landscape along
Behind him, sowing in his own mind–
Your mind–the future, the night
You will lie down in an open field
To watch stars wheeling round
Nothing but sky and this boat
Of a planet and what you became
In the garden of the asylum when
Your mind was the wind in the trees.
The place where you sat in the sun is still
sunny. The yard still bristles with chimes
in strong wind. My bad eye still lives
in a world with two moons. Our room is still
a mess. And the malaise is still here. And
I still expect to see you in every
waking moment and every dream. And
everything’s exactly as you left it
but you’re gone.
Accidental Antenna 