A Little Shed Radiance

Exiguously cloudy

Blue morning on the mesa,

Beginning of November

In American desert,

And on the glowing page,

Auster, in admiration,

Quotes Crane, the meaning of ants,

Potentates, wars, cities, sun . . .

The alienating force

Of the wound has driven him

Into himself and out . . . walled

Off, elsewhere. . . . He held his wrist

Tenderly in his left hand

As if the wounded arm was

Made of very brittle glass,

And that’s it, a minor flash

From the dawn, from memory

Among its familiar words.

It’s shock, not soldiering—

It’s wound, not situation,

Certainly not the given

Cause—you, too, have been wounded,

And folded into yourself,

Hawk-tumbled from the beauty

Of an exquisite morning,

Once, under maculate skies

Like these, middle of a fall.