“No weekends for the gods now. Warsflicker, earth licks its open sores,fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chanceassassinations, no advance.Only man thinning out his own kindsounds through the Sabbath noon, the blindswipe of the pruner and his knifebusy about the tree of life...Pity the planet, all joy gonefrom this sweet volcanic cone;peace to our children when they fallin small war on the heels of smallwar - until the end of timeto police th eearth, a ghostorbiting forever lostin our monotonous sublime.”
“In the end, there is no end.”
“The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.”
“Pity the planet, all joy gonefrom this sweet volcanic cone;peace to our children when they fallin small war on the heel of smallwar--until the end of timeto police the earth, a ghostorbiting forever lostin our monotonous sublime”
“The Lord survives the rainbow of His will.”
“Epilogue Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme--why are they no help to me nowI want to makesomething imagined, not recalled?I hear the noise of my own voice:The painter's vision is not a lens,it trembles to caress the light.But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eyeseems a snapshot,lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,heightened from life,yet paralyzed by fact.All's misalliance.Yet why not say what happened?Pray for the grace of accuracyVermeer gave to the sun's illuminationstealing like the tide across a mapto his girl solid with yearning.We are poor passing facts,warned by that to giveeach figure in the photographhis living name.”