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Calling to Measure
It’s an obsession now, this matching
And measuring, comparing, for instance,
The coral-violet of the inner lip
Of a queen conch to the last rim of dusk
On the purple-flowering raspberry
To the pure indigo of the bird-voiced
Tree frog’s twittering tongue, then converting
The result to an accepted standard
Of rose-scarlet gradations.
It’s difficult to say which is greater-
The brevity of the elk’s frosty bellow
Or the moments of fog sun-lifted
Through fragrances of blue spruce
Or the fading flavor in one spoonful
Of warm chocolate rum.
I mark out space by ten peas
Strung on a string. The pane perimeter
Of my window, for instance, is twenty-eight
Lengths, twelve lengths over.
Seventy pea-strings stretch from bed
To door, Four go round my neck.
My longing for you is more painful
Than the six-times folding, doubling
And doubling, of a coyote’s
Most piercing cry, more inconsolable
Than a whole night of moonlight blinded
By thunderclouds, more constant
Than black at the center of a cavern
Stone below leagues of granite.
I gauge my cold by the depth
Of stillness in the pod heart of a frozen
Wren. I time my breath by the faltering
Leaves of aspen in wind. I count the circles
Of my dizziness by the spreading rings
Of rain-lassos on the pond, by the repeating
Bell chimes of the corridor clock,
By the one unending ring of the horizon.
Where is the tablet, where the rule, where
The steel weights, the balance, the book,
Properly to make measure of a loss
So grand and deep I can spread and stitch it
To every visible star I name- Arcturus,
Spica, Vega, Regulus- in this dark
Surrounding dark surrounding dark?
”
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