Unearth

(Paul auster 1970-1972)

Between these spasms of light,

In brittle fern, in dark thickets;

Waiting in your labyrinthine ear

For the thunder to crack;

For the babel-roar, for the silence.

It will not be what you wandered to

That is heard. But the step,

Burrowing under this parted sky,

That keeps its distance whole.

And that widens in you

At the mouth of cloven earth,

Where you watch these fallen stars

Struggle to crawl back to you,

Bearing the gifts of hell.

From one stone touched to the next stone

Named: Tarth-hood: the inaccesible ember.

You will sleep here, a voice

Moored to stone, moving through

This empty house that listens

To the fire that destroyed it.

You will begin. To drag your body

From the ashes. To carry the burden

Of eyes. No one's voice, alien to fall,

And once gathered in the eye that bled

Such brightness. Your sinew does not mend,

It is another rope, braided by ink,

And aching through this raw hand

That hauls the images back to us:

The clairvoyant corpse, singing.