Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind

I. Place a Stone in the Air

Resting she has borne a bright face Cold— A mask, too near, but also too far; I cannot connect, But it is not useful to bury her, she has never emptied herself Nor become ashes. All my work has failed to ground. Blacknesses are feared and a scourging destiny Presses from the sky beneath the firmament. Insects glitter, they were moths caught among the shallows yellow, like bruised feathers covered on the stone.

[…]

II. Wind Carries the Death.

Until it glows like amazement, a shudder in space, it fumbles. Love—it is produced by no self-preserving lust—
a great pillar of light appeared over the cliff And there the occult darknesses of open space glowed. Far from gabbling fortune it seemed but a watching eye. Perhaps it marks yet another solitary star’s wild path, A wisp of wind strikes and lifts away what must be. Pain should not loaf, nor grow still among thick underbrush; Like some downstream fall without a bottom to it—I am left admiring That distant vault since no one can disturb the handfuls of woodcases.

[…]

III. Writing it Home,

Dolorous notes frayed with threads cling to slopes, they climb but they frolic hang birds of the wind, toward an empty limit, where the green returns strongly, a repose~ The strings have slipped like the casual world.

[…]

IV. Cracked Earth

Earth waits while we cry, and they watch the ground. Lamentations of the sky clobber copper cannons. Pain is mirrored in prospects losing trail in its dry island. To simply breathe, though solid air assumes yet another tail and keeps both the house and river flowing toward me in silence! It was light and easily false and rearranged again, and these harms surround clearer water forest. Spring is rage cold on ugly weeds closed afloat, gently gathering colors as the wild—the night gathers too.

… The storm comes from its source returning to the dark.
Nothing burns me, it’s the felt wind that I grasp upon. I will venture again and chant quiet time.

For these descriptions I must be with creatures that suffer; a rain exhausts among their wings.

• Elizabeth Bishop