A Wave by John Ashbery

heaven around in one’s breast-pocket? To satisfy
    The hunger of millions with something more substantial than good wishes
    And still withhold the final reassurance? So you see these
    Days each with its disarming set of images and attitudes
    Are beneficial perhaps but only after the last one
    In every series has disappeared, down the road, forever, at night.
    It would be cockier to ask of heaven just what is this present
    Of an old dishpan you bestowed on me? Can I get out the door
    With it, now that so many old enmities and flirtations have shrunk
    To little more than fine print in the contexts of lives and so much
    New ground is coming undone, shaken out like a scarf or a handkerchief
    From this window that dominates everything perhaps a little too much?
    In falling we should note the protective rush of air past us
    And then pray for some day after the war to cull each of
    The limited set of reflections we were given at the beginning
    To try to make a fortune out of. Only then will some kind of radical stance
    Have had some meaning, and for itself, not for us who lie gasping
    On slopes never having had the nerve to trust just us, to go out with us
    Not fearing some solemn overseer in the breath from the treetops.
    And that that game-plan and the love we have been given for nothing
    In particular should coincide—no, it is not yet time to think these things.
    In vain would one try to peel off that love from the object it fits
    So nicely, now, remembering it will have to be some day. You
    Might as well offer it to your neighbor, the first one you meet, or throw
    It away entirely, as plan to unlock on such and such a date
    The door to this forest that has been your total upbringing.
    No one expects it, and thus
    Flares are launched out over the late disturbed landscape
    Of items written down only to be forgotten once more, forever this time.
    And already the sky is getting to be less salmon-colored,
    The black clouds more meaningless (otter-shaped at first;
    Now, as they retreat into incertitude, mere fins)
    And perhaps it’s too late for anything like the overhaul
    That seemed called for, earlier, but whose initiative
    Was it after all? I mean I don’t mind staying here
    A little longer, sitting quietly under a tree, if all this
    Is going to clear up by itself anyway.
    There is no indication this will happen,
    But I don’t mind. I feel at peace with the parts of myself
    That questioned this other, easygoing side, chafed it
    To a knotted rope of guesswork looming out of storms
    And darkness and proceeding on its way into nowhere
    Barely muttering. Always, a few errands
    Summon us periodically from the room of our forethought
    And that is a good thing. And such attentiveness
    Besides! Almost more than anybody could bring to anything,
    But we managed it, and with a good grace, too. Nobody
    Is going to hold that against us. But since you bring up the question
    I will say I am not unhappy to place myself entirely
    At your disposal temporarily. Much that had drained out of living
    Returns, in those moments, mounting the little capillaries
    Of polite questions and seeming concern. I want it back.
    And though that other question that I asked and can’t
    Remember any more is going to move still farther upward, casting
    Its shadow enormously over where I remain, I can’t see it.
    Enough to know that I shall have answered for myself soon,
    Be led away for further questioning and later returned
    To the amazingly quiet room in which all my life has been spent.
    It comes and goes; the walls, like veils, are never the same,
    Yet the thirst remains identical, always to be entertained
    And marveled at. And it is finally we who break it off,
    Speed the departing guest, lest any question remain
    Unasked, and thereby unanswered. Please, it almost
    Seems to say, take me with you, I’m old enough. Exactly.
    And so each of us has to remain alone, conscious of each other
    Until the day when war absolves us of our differences. We’ll
    Stay in