Emily      The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow   Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh   A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow   Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?      There is a rusty light on the pines tonight   Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow   Down into the bones of the birches   And the spires of the churches   Jutting out from the shadows   The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow   And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope   In the mouth of the south below      We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey   We thought our very hearts would up and melt away   From that snow in the night time   Just going   And going   And the stirring of wind chimes   In the morning   In the morning   Helps me find my way back in   From the place where I have been      And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river   I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water   Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,   In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror      Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water   You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger   Though all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in december   I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember      That the meteorite is a source of the light   And the meteor's just what we see   And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee      And the meteorite's just what causes the light   And the meteor's how it's perceived   And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee      You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I'm in   Threw the window wide and cried; Amen! Amen! Amen!   The whole world - stopped - to hear you hollering   You looked down and saw now what was happening      The lines are fadin' in my kingdom   Though I have never known the way to border 'em in   So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows and the grouse and the horse and the hen   Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tidy pen   And the mail is late and the great estates are not lit from within   The talk in town's becoming downright sickening      In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare   I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there   And row through the night time   Gone healthy   Gone healthy all of a sudden   In search of the midwife   Who could help me   Who could help me   Help me find my way back in   There are worries where I've been      Say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered   Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water   Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper   Emily, they'll follow your lead by the letter   And I make this claim, and I'm not ashamed to say I know you better   What they've seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter      Let us go! Though we know it's a hopeless endeavor   The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever   Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning   There is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning      Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now   Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow   Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow, with   Hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow      And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour   The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours   And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines   Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines      Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight   The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light   Squint skyward and listen -   Loving him, we move within his borders:   Just asterisms in the stars' set order      We could stand for a century   Starin'   With our heads cocked   In the broad daylight at this thing   Joy   Landlocked   In bodies that don't keep   Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being   Till we don't be   Told; take this   Eat this      Told, the meteorite is the source of the light   And the meteor's just what we see   And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee      And the meteorite's just what causes the light   And the meteor's how it's perceived   And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee