Maverick Mist

The Whole World’s Sadly
Talking To Itself
–W. B. Yeats
By James Tate

“Hands full of sand,
I say: take this,
this is what I have saved;
I earned this with my genius,
and because I love you…

Take this, hurry.
I am dropping everything
and then I listened:
I was not saying anything;
out of all that had gone into
the composition of the language
and what I knew of it
I had chiselled these words
– take this, hurry-
and you could not hear me.
I had said nothing.
And then I am leaving,

making ready to go to another street,
when you, mingled between sleep
and delirium, turned

and handed me an empty sack:
Take this, my friend;
I am not coming back.
The ghost of a flower poised on your lip”

▫️