The faces, the indecent rocking of the ship between destinations,
the trail of yellow foam like misery on the water, the faces in passivity
under the sails, the crowd of fortune, the quiet rhythm, sleep that never
comes, the nearing port, the daunting, menacing knowledge of nothing.
The games that they play, heartless and repetitive, on the decks,

Slowly the beekeeper moves, like a lean and tired animal,
dressed like a simple landscape in all the colors of the West.
His secret a crown on his head, he stares right through others.
On hidden dirt tracks, he drives a small van filled with stories,

The Amtrak train pulls into the Kirkwood train station.
In the slowness, the mental urgency of arrival,
in the emotional upheaval of dislocation and its death-like
peacefulness, the insignificant station stands as
you watch the evening rising from the parting of the tracks.

A man is driving on a highway,
darting through little North American towns.
Lulled on their wires by Northern winds,
traffic lights sway above the streets.
It is spring in the middle of February,
he sees it in the color of the earth,
a dark rose, like a wall in Sicily.