Marriage is not
a house or even a tent
it is before that, and colder:
The edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert

There is nothing to be afraid of,
it is only the wind
changing to the east, it is only
your father the thunder
your mother the rain

He is here, come down to look for
It is the song that calls you back
a song of joy and suffering
equally: a promise:
that things will be different up t

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

i
The children on the lawn
joined hand to hand
go round and round
each arm going into

Those whose houses were burned
burned houses. What else ever happ
once you start?
While the roofs plunged
into the root-filled cellars,

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your ro
house, half-acre, square mile, isl
knowing at last how you got there,

The bronze clock brought
with such care over the sea,
which ticked like the fat slow hea
of a cedar, of a grandmother,
melted and its hundred years

In the secular night you wander ar
alone in your house. It’s two-thir
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen