Ekhardt’s Ice

         for G.S.

 

1.

Like Ekhardt, you tried to be

detached from us

and thus became like God:

if you believe that part, Robert,

you’d not be here.

 

      My cold

February day without sufficient

wind: I can’t say what the ice

along the river “means.”

 

Only when no one hears

(you say) can you hear

what you know.

 

   If I became

your judge, all (you’d say)

I’d know

are standards and whatever

you’d want to hear.

 

 

2.

The opening’s like fireworks—

like Spicer’s—

where the people say “Ahhhh”

and the boy says “Fisssh.”

Why be suspicious

of color in the spring?

 

3.

What season’s long enough

for you to find yourself? You’re free

of them. Even spring seems just

another determined thing.

 

4.

Fear that “Domino” is “Dominus”—

that this poet really knows:

that you will never know

as well as he.

 

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