five poems, Robert Creeley

The House, for Louis Zukofsky


Mud put
upon mud,
lifted
to make room,

house
a cave,
and
colder night.

To sleep
in, live in,
to come in
from heat,

all form derived
from kind,
built
with that in mind.



After


I'll not write again
things a young man
thinks, not the words
of that feeling.

There is no world
except felt, no
one there but
must be here also.

If that time was
echoing, a vindication
apparent, if flesh
and bone coincided--

let the body be.
See faces float
over the horizon let
the day end.



What


What would it be
like walking off
by oneself down

that path in the
classic woods the light
lift of breeze softness

of this early evening and
you want some time
to yourself to think

of it all again
and again an
empty ending?



Echo


Broken heart, you
timeless wonder.

What a small
place to be.

True, true
to life, to life.



Life


All the ways to go,
the echoes, made sense.

It was as fast as that,
no time to figure it out.

No simple straight line,
you'd get there in time

enough standing still.
It came to you

whatever you planned to do.
Later, you'd get it together.

Now it was here.
Time to move.