***

Because I saw a crow in the wind
that dragged itself from a giant fir-
rising in a squall,
it flapped wildly, never moving, then,
exhausted, dropped back,
rose again, stalled,
& again, stalled,
as if doing it for me, though of course
me is absent there, in the leaved, treelevel
too blue crow-universe-

Because I saw a crow in the wind

I knew that was the soul, that restless thing,
the thing that is said no to-

& it repelled me
with its longing, the stupidity of its longing.

***

Call it
the undersoul: the life in each grain of matter.
Not just the bird but its brains,
lungs, barb & vole
of its feathers, each
molecule that pushes into the wind-

The hopeless, whirling, Paolo-and-Francesca embrace
of proton & electron.
Endless fighting, endless flux-

Things that cannot stop, even in our mouths,
becoming other things-
Valerian, valediction.