Possibly the beginning of something...

These are the sleeping houses of God,
we say it to each other again and again­—we
are always writing the same
poem.

In the sleeping houses of God,
it is impossible to sing together.
The air is too clotted with feathers
and blood;
voices are strangled at great distances,
& we are busy muttering in short cadences
brief prayers and admonitions.

Every day, we undo the threads of the same
cloth, each knot or bead
shuddering to the quiet floor.
It is perfectly still.

Sometimes, not often, small boats
approach us, here
in the sleeping houses of
God. We watch them drift closer toward us,
as toward a small and changeful island
somewhere in the Aegean,
where unpronouncable creatures
stand with waiting hands, streaming hair,
horrible eyes.

They never stray much farther
than the breakers. Their paths always seem
to diverge.
We watch them
with little hope.

It is possible that we have shifted the ground
with our stamping feet. We are always
moving in the same direction.

At evening the waves swell
like a tumor and consume the sky. There is
no sun,
only a blazing and constant light.

It is the country of the sleeping houses
of God. In our berth of tumid water,
we stand with our backs to the shore,
asking one another
the same question:

despite innumerable answers,
we remain under the lampless sky,
repeating.