I
Somewhere my shadow, they say,
Drawn, paralyzed to the empire of dust,
Strewn amongst the star-strewn seas
And the coil of the darkened skies
It walks, somewhere walks my shadow,
Pebbling through the turf of the ocean,
Drifting into the stems of the sand,
Hewn and hurled through the salt-dunes,
Torn and tattered by the wavering breakers.

II
Someone spoke today, I know it,
Across the wind a voice of wood and leaf,
A voice of rock and sawdust of the hills,
Someone today, a stone-cold echo
Came as a spiral message of clouds gathered,
Of black drowned sparrows and blue eyes
Rained and poured in drops of golden;
Someone spoke today, I know, I listened,
And now I’m dead, another wavelet shattered.

III
To speak with someone’s shadow but my own,
To speak of time and not of mine arrows,
My slid of troubled singed, winged slings,
Being called and summoned and obliged,
Being spat on to kneel on someone’s disguise
As the seething spur and the tide rises;
No one, hand and no one can see my shadow,
Skipping the foam that washes the clothes of heaven,
Shooting down the stars, the wild-torn candles seven.

IV
Had I the folded cups, the wombs and chalices,
Had I the moon, the stars and stringed crosses,
I’d set them down, those sculptures, down to ashes,
And see revived somewhere the shadow of the masses,
No mass, no birth, no exit, no cold spine-shudder,
No word, no prayer, no bread, no daily instances,
Just this man against the rock and the broken sky-ladder,
Burning, blazing in the midst of a throbbed thorn-fire,
Alone, unshaded, shaped by the crowd of the ocean.