148
THE MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW
CROW ALIGHTS
Crow saw the herded mountains, steaming in the morning.
And he saw the sea
Dark-spined, with the whole earth in its coils.
He saw the stars, fuming away into the black, mushrooms of the
nothing forest, clouding their spores, the virus of God.
He shivered with the horror of Creation.
In the hallucination of the horror
He saw this shoe, with no sole, rain-sodden,
Lying on a moor.
And there was this garbage can, bottom rusted away,
A playing place for the wind, in a waste of puddles.
There was this coat, in the dark cupboard, in the silent room, in
the silent house.
There was this face, smoking its cigarette between the dusk window
and the fire's embers.
Near the face, this hand, motionless.
Near the hand, this cup.
Crow blinked. He blinked. Nothing faded.
He stared at the evidence.
Nothing escaped him. (Nothing could escape.)
