Carolyn Forche - Blue Hour

bell music rolling down the roofs

between here and here

between hidden points in the soul

between hidden points in the soul born from nothing

between saying and said

beyond what one has oneself done

birchbark curling from the birch limbs

birds dropping from flight leaving cries in the air

birds in the clerestory, a tapestry of broken light

biting hard the fear

black corn in the fields, crib smoke, and bones enough to fill a sack

black fingernails, blue hands, lost hair

black storms of dream

black with burnt-up meaning

blessed be a knowledge that burns thought

blood rose and love

blossoming poplars

blossoming walls, a grave digger’s tunic, a newspaper kiosk in rain

blossoms yet again inside us

blue lobelia rising along the gate

blue-leaved lilies

blue-winged roofs and rooflight

boat scraps washed leeward

bone child in the palm a bird in the heart

bone-clicking applause of the winter trees

bones of the unknown

bones smoothed by water

book of smoke, black soup

born with a map of calamity in her palm

both windows open to whatever may happen

bottled light tossed into the sea with no message

bring forth what is within

bring in your whispering harvest

broken clouds return from the past

broken space, ruined birds, death’s heaven

but in a change of worlds you weren’t you

by someone who was not and would not revient

by the time we were face to face

by which we is not the plural of I

Ça ne veut pas rien dire

caged canaries before each shop as if the street were a mineshaft

canticle, casement, casque, cerement, cinder

capable of a fate other than its own

cathedral bells chiseling the winter air

cathedral of shivering light

Ce voyage, je voulais le refaire

certain of thought but not of what is seen

chandeliers in shellfire, chaotic light

charnel house of the innocents

checkpoints, roadblocks, barricades, points of entry

children shouting goodbye in a hot wind

christmas lights in smoke

cinema does not describe this moment

city through the filth of a bus window

clouds of lake water, light and speech

clouds of road behind us

clouds returning to the sky from the past

cocoa, whistling pine, ceiba, ylang-ylang, rain

code for key turns

cognac steadying the night

cold fire-pit

cold stalks of daylily

come, love, through burning

composed of light

converging on my own life

cordite wind, one’s first cordite

corn black in the fields, crib smoke, bones, a rib cage

corrugated fields, sheep on the bare fields of drought

cotton mats spread on the floors of classrooms

countries erased from their maps

cratered memory cratered field

crows took rye scraps from her hands

curtains of rain opening

dark, borne within us

dead woman giving birth to rats

dear Françoise of bravery under fire

death is not the conclusion of earthly life

death is the descent of the one called

décryptage

destroys what it briefly illuminates

detritus reaching through a window washed away by wind

difference which she is not to speak

digging a hole in the floor for no apparent reason

disquiet and the book of disquiet

dissolved into the yet-again

distance measured in space or time

do we interpret the words before we obey the order?

doors opening, stones humming the foretold

dovecote, drum, dust

doves on the gray limbs of winter poplar

down a desert road aerially strafed

drawings doomed to be destroyed by bullets

dreaming nouns remembered until a window

dressed in their shrouds

drinking from cupped hands

dwelling in apartness

each a ring of soot

each day breaking along the cordillera, then broken

each page a window intact until touched

early summer’s green plums

earth singing in her magma chambers

easter lilies opening in

elegiac time

empty windows dipped in milk

enigma, escritoire, estuary

enough seen. enough had. enough

even if by forgetting

even if he is thousands of miles away or dead

even the trembling of souls turning into light

every line in his face the river of a single year

except to be gentle with one who loved you mistakenly and very much

expectation, the presence of the not-yet-exiled from itself

filled with lifelong gratitude

fire of human becoming

fired from the tip of the only possible

fireflies above the graves, time collapsing, your name which should not have been in stone in stone

firing into the air five nights in the shelter

firmament, fissure, flare stars, frottage

flags opening in wind

flatbread like a stack of plates on his arm

flocks of geese marching in formation down a dust road

flowering trees: trumpet, bottlebrush, cassia, frangipani, flame, sea grape

flowers rotting on mounds: air plant, allamanda, amaryllis, spider lily, bougainvillea, shellflower, hibiscus, ashanti blood, trumpet vines, oleander

for the rest of your life, search for them

for the words that would not come

forward to a rope from his arm to the post

forward to a wedding-cake knife in our hands

forward to the blindfold

forward to the list of demands

fountains of dust rising out of the hills

fragments from the Second Brandenburg

fresh wind in the linens

from a gloved hand a flaming bottle

from chance to chance, event to event

from earth to satellite, event to event

from our last train ride through the ricefields

from the cathedral comes Kyrie

garbage fires along the picket lines

gasoline coupons and rations, an event no longer remote

Georg leaning against the winter pine eating a sparrow

ghost hands appearing in windows, rubbing them clear

ghost swift, grisaille, guardian spirit

God not a being but a force, and humans, the probative tip of that becoming

God withdrawn from the world

gourds, relief sacks loaded into trucks, poles, rags, tents

graves marked with scrap iron, a world in her dead eye

grief of leave-taking

ground fog rising from a graveyard

had gathered to die

had it changed?

had undergone subtle and perilous shiftings

half-tracks and yellow-eyed transports, and behind them a long road

happens when you say yes

happiness without fulfillment

having made herself stand she was at rest

hayloft, hillock, hoarfrost, hush

he is from exile, which is in all of them

he listened to Schubert, Tosca

he saw nothing of what was to come

he told her how, in those years

he, though alive, was no longer

her amnesia an approach to understanding her life

her face the war years

her hair a banner of rain

her hands blue in the well

her wet skirt wrapping her legs

hills thinning at the world’s edge

his absence fills with passing clouds, the script of birds, and schoolchildren’s voices

his ashen hands having passed through the window of his truck

his can of dark tobacco, his yellow finch in a cage

his footsteps disappearing as he walked

his grave strewn with slipper flowers and sardine cans

his hands, detritus reaching through a window washed away

his words sparkling in the raw air

history branded with the mark of uncertainty