Vetiver

Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay,

As the flowers recited their lines

And pike stirred at the bottom of the pond.

The pen was cool to the touch.

The staircase swept upward

Through fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholy

Already distilled in letters of the alphabet.

It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugar

Palaces and also lines of care

At the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks,

The color once known as “ashes of roses.”

How many snakes and lizards shed their skins

For time to be passing on like this,

Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound toward

The conclusion. It had all been working so well and now,

Well, it just kind of came apart in the hand

As a chance is voiced, sharp

As a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowed 

Past us into a basin called infinity.

There was no charge for anything, the gates

Had been left open intentionally.

Don’t follow, you can have whatever it is.

And in some room someone examines his youth,

Find it dry and hollow, porous to the touch.

O keep me with you, unless the outdoors

Embraces both of us, unites us, unless

The birdcatchers put away their twigs,

The fishermen haul in their sleek empty nets

And others become part of the immense crowd

Around this bonfire, a situation

That has come to mean us to us, and the crying

In the leaves is saved, the last silver drops.

— from April Galleons (© 1987, 2007, 2008 Estate of John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc.)