You and me were always with each other Before we knew the other was ever there You and me, we belong together Just like a breath needs the air I told you if you called I would come runnin' Across the highs the lows and the in-between You and me, we've got two minds that think as one And our hearts march to the same beat They say everything, it happens for a reason You can be flawed enough but perfect for a person Someone who will be there for you when you fall apart Guiding your direction when you're riding through the dark Oh, that's you and me You and me, we're searching for the same light Desperate for a cure to this disease Well, some days are better than others But I fear no thing as long as you're with me They say everything, it happens for a reason You can be flawed enough but perfect for a person Someone who will be there for you when you fall apart Guiding your direction when you're riding through the dark And they say everything, it happens for a reason You can be flawed enough but perfect for a person Someone who will be there when you start to fall apart Guiding your direction when you're riding through the dark Oh, that's you and me Oh, that's you and me Oh, that's you and me That's you and me That's you and me

Summertimes and the living is easy Fish are jumping and the cotton is high Oh oh your daddy's rich and your ma's good looking So hush little baby don't you cry One of these mornings you are gonna rise up singing Then you 'll spread your wings And you'll take to the sky But still that morning There's nothing can harm you With your daddy and your mammy standing by

Hay, and a clean stall, And ivy on a garden wall, And a sign saying Sold, And an old coat For the bad cold. I believe in you. Do you believe in me? What do you want to do? Are we leaving the city? On the black road, Through the gold fields, While the fields are plowed, Towards what we are allowed... The bridle bends in idle hands And slows our canter to a trot. We mean to stop, in increments, but can't commit. We post and sit, in impotence: The harder you hit, the deeper the dent. We seek our name. We seek our fame, and our credentials (Paned in glass, trained to master incidentals). Bleach our collar, leech our dollar from our cents: The longer you live, the higher the rent. Beneath the pale sky, Beside the red barn, Below the white clouds, Is all we are allowed. Here, the light will seep, And the scythe will reap, And spirit will rend, in counting toward the end. In December of that year, The word came down that she was here. The days grew shorter. I was sure, if she came 'round, I'd hold my ground. I'd endure. But they'd alluded to a change That came to pass, And Spring, deranged, Weeping grass and sleepless, Broke herself upon my windowglass. And I could barely breathe, for seeing All the splintered light that leaked her fissures, Fleeing, launched in flight: Unstaunched daylight, brightly bleeding, Bleached the night with dawn, deleting, In that high sun, After our good run, When the spirit bends Beneath knowing it must end. And that is all I want here: To draw my gaunt spirit to bow Beneath what I am allowed. Beneath what I am allowed.

Oh, where is your inflammatory writ Your text that would incite a light, be lit Our music deserving devotion unswerving Cry "Do I deserve her?" with unflagging fervor Well, no we do not, if we cannot get over it But what's it mean when suddenly we're spent, tell me true Ambition came and reared its head, and went far from you Even mollusks have weddings, though solemn and leaden But you dirge for the dead, take no jam on your bread Just a supper of salt and a waltz through your empty bed And all at once it came to me And I wrote and hunched 'till four-thirty But that vestal light It burns out with the night In spite of all the time that we spent on it On one bedraggled ghost of a sonnet While outside, the wild boars root Without bending a bough underfoot Oh it breaks my heart I don't know how they do it So don't ask me And as for my inflammatory writ Well, I wrote it and I was not inflamed one bit Advice from the master derailed that disaster He said "Hand that pen over to me, poetaster!" While across the great plains, keening lovely and awful Ululate the last Great American Novels An unlawful lot, left to stutter and freeze, floodlit But at least they didn't run, to their undying credit

And there was a booming above you that night, Black airplanes flew over the sea. And they were lowing and shifting like Beached whales, Shelled snails As you strained and you squinted to see The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry. You froze in your sand shoal, Prayed for your poor soul; Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl. And when the bread broke– Fell in bricks of wet smoke– My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke. Then there was a silence you took to mean something: Mean, Run, sing, For alive you will evermore be. And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking Has gone east, While you're left to explain them to me– Released From their hairless and blind cavalry. With your hands in your pockets, Stubbily running To where I'm unfresh, Undressed and yawning– Well, what is this craziness? This crazy talking? You caught some small death When you were sleepwalking. It was a dark dream, darlin', It's over. The fire breather is beneath the clover. Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever, A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather. But I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever), Down to the swimming hole, where there grows bitter herb That blooms but one day a year by the riverside– I'd bring it here: Apply it gently To the love you've lent me. While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed, And the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze. And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly, Gone treacly, nearly slowed to a stop in this heat– Frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath. Press on me: We are restless things. Webs of seaweed are swaddling. You call upon the dusk Of the musk of a squid– Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib. Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes, I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it! Smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened. Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking. And when the fire moves away, Fire moves away, son. Why would you say I was the last one? Scrape your knee: it is only skin. Makes the sound of violins. When I cut your hair, and leave the birds the trimmings, I am the happiest woman among all women. And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see. Knee deep, trudging along– The seagull weeps 'so long'– I'm humming a threshing song– Until the night is over, Hold on, hold on; Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn. I have got some business out at the edge of town, Candy weighing both of my pockets down Till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them (And knowing how the commonfolk condemn What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm: Being a woman. Being a woman). But always at the mountainside you're clambering, Groping blindly, hungry for anything; Picking through your pocket linings– Well, what is this? Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus? I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain. Little sister, he will be back again. I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain; Spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and Dangling silently from all the blooming cherry trees, In tiny nooses, safe from everyone– Nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done– Be a woman. Be a woman. Though we felt the spray of the waves, We decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far. We weren't afraid, cause we know what you are, And you know that we know what you are. Awful atoll– O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow! Bawl, bellow: Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow. Toddle and roll: Teethe an imalpable bit of leather, While yarrow, heather and hollyhock Awkwardly molt along the shore. Are you mine? My heart? Mine anymore? Stay with me for awhile. That's an awfully real gun. I know life will lay you down, As the lightning has lately done. Failing this, failing this, Follow me, my sweetest friend, To see what you anointed, In pointing your gun there. Lay it down! Nice and slow! There is nowhere to go, Save up: Up where the light, undiluted, is Weaving, in a drunk dream, At the sight of my baby, out back: Back on the patio, Watching the bats bring night in –While, elsewhere, Estuaries of wax-white Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped. Last week our picture window Produced a half-word, Heavy and hollow, Hit by a brown bird. We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake, And pant and labor over every intake. I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace, Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place. Said, "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you, And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view." Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight. We tramped through the poison oak, heartbroke and inchoate. The dogs were snapping and you cuffed their collars, While I climbed the tree-house. Then how I hollered! Cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two; Then saw the treetops, cocked her head, and up and flew. (While, back in the world that moves, often, according to The hoarding of these clues, Dog still run roughly around Little tufts of finch-down.) The cities we passed were a flickering wasteland, But his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless. While down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming; We have everything. Life is thundering blissful towards death In a stampede Of his fumbling green gentleness. You stopped by; I was all alive. In my doorway, he shucked and jived. And when you wept, I was gone; See, I got gone when I got wise. But I can't with certainty say we survived. Then down and down And down and down And down and deeper, Stoke, without sound, The blameless flames, You endless sleeper. Through fire below, And fire above, And far within, Sleep through the things that couldn't have been, If you hadn't have been. And when the fire moves away, Fire moves away, son. Why would you say I was the last one? All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone. Take my bones, I don't need none. Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on! Suck all day on a cherry stone. Dig a little hole not three inches round– Spit your pit in the hole in the ground. Weep upon the spot for the starving of me! Till up grows a fine young cherry tree. When the bough breaks, what'll you make for me? A little willow cabin to rest on your knee. What'll I do with a trinket such as this? Think of your woman, who's gone to the west. But I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed! Then I'll crawl across the salt flats, to stroke your sweet head. Come across the desert with no shoes on! I love you truly, Or I love no-one. Fire moves away. Fire moves away, son. Why would you say I was the last one? Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, afire. Get going, And I'm going to be right behind you. And if the love of a woman or two, dear, Could move you to such heights, Then all I can do Is do, my darling, right by you.

There was a knight and a lady bright And three little babes had she She sent them away to a far country To learn their grammary They hadn't been gone but a very short time About three months and a day When the lark spread over this whole wide world And taken those babes away It was on a cold, cold Christmas night When everything was still And she saw her three little babes come runnin' Come runnin' down the hill She set them a table of bread and wine That they might drink and eat She spread them a bed of a winding sheet That they might sleep so sweet 'Take it off, take it off!', cried the eldest one 'Take it off, take it off!', cried she 'For I shan't stay here in this wicked world When there's a better one for me' 'Cold clods, cold clods inside my bed Cold clods, down at my feet The tears my dear mother shed for me Would wet my winding sheet' 'The tears my dear mother shed for me Would wet my winding sheet Would wet my winding sheet'