["When can I move from this room"]

When can I move from this room
the landscape with yellow birds on my wall
to leave this dust and cold illumination?
… no matter how long I warm with my hands
 
To look at all I am again
the beginnings    the awareness    the wild myths out of vision:
the Kansas that I am    my meaning stretched toward that center earth —
because I do not struggle there to sink into the rocks
to know my footsteps    to step into them …
because I am tired
because I hate the dead illumined reason to combat Cambridge
the change of worlds    the sudden past for friendship
 
There are too many summers full of Kansas in my heat —
whatever fresh blood to spurt my hands into fever and reality
is there across sun and brick pavement looking west toward Wichita
And whatever I am it is to communicate
to rummage in the endless heat at my wrist and eyes
to never cease to tell —
yes, Tu Fu and rock n roll, to hand across the summer
to tell the roots of worth in every humanity
to call out    to play the green ghost fires into the rock
that no one will ever forget
that no one will ever move down this sweating corridor
caked in the dust of any man’s intelligence
 
I want to sing to grant sincerity
to carve as no cold stone statues by the frozen ditches
Wisdom, my pockets are full toward all men
and these few teeth to bite for all
out of the cold
                             o generosity
the dead center
 
 
23 April [1959, Cambridge, Massachusetts]