Celestial Music

6We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.

7I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality

8But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.

9Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out

10According to nature. For my sake she intervened

11Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down

12Across the road.

13My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains

14My aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who

15Buries her head in the pillow

16So as not to see, the child who tells herself

17That light causes sadness-

18My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me

19To wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person-

20In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking

21On the same road, except it's winter now;

22She's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:

23Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.

24Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees

25Like brides leaping to a great height-

26Then I'm afraid for her; I see her

27Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth-

28In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;

29From time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.

30It's this moment we're trying to explain, the fact

31That we're at ease with death, with solitude.

32My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.

33She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image

34Capable of life apart from her.

35We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, The composition

36Fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air

37Going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering-

38It's this stillness we both love.

39The love of form is a love of endings.