TALISMAN
Under a splintered mast, torn from ship and cast near her hull,
a stumbling shepherd found embedded in the ground, a sea-gull
of lapis lazuli, a scarab of the sea, with wings spread—
curling its coral feet, parting its beak to greet men long dead.
BLACK EARTH
Openly, yes, with the naturalness of the hippopotamus or the alligator when it climbs out on the bank to experience the
sun, I do these things which I do, which please no one but myself. Now I breathe and now I am sub- merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object