That Breakfast
– in memory of Wallace Stevens
His pigeons have reached darkness
By now, and absolute shade,
The one fast color, hardened
The rich change of his blue gaze.
Indelible leaves falling
Across the Sundays, firing
An ice-rimmed sky or blazing
In his page, will hold his sound.
Earth only will find him cold.
How fair must have been that late
And inexorable stand
When, closely groomed, breakfasting
Expensively on warm wine,
Eggs Benedict, he reworked
Some dark juxtaposition,
His gaze led by innocence,
His hands in the moment, all
Malice suspended softly,
And heard in the seventh hour,
Dilating like the sea's prose,
That long formality: peace.
– in memory of Wallace Stevens
His pigeons have reached darkness
By now, and absolute shade,
The one fast color, hardened
The rich change of his blue gaze.
Indelible leaves falling
Across the Sundays, firing
An ice-rimmed sky or blazing
In his page, will hold his sound.
Earth only will find him cold.
How fair must have been that late
And inexorable stand
When, closely groomed, breakfasting
Expensively on warm wine,
Eggs Benedict, he reworked
Some dark juxtaposition,
His gaze led by innocence,
His hands in the moment, all
Malice suspended softly,
And heard in the seventh hour,
Dilating like the sea's prose,
That long formality: peace.
