RESIDENTIAL COMPOUND

Here the wind can be heard again.

It passes between the buildings, sways
the pines, freezes the drive-in.

You who are moving everywhere,
I can’t tell you: Hear, O hear,
be thou spirit fierce my spirit.
In the night there is only
a waiting
but no one is impetuous enough to speak to you
as in the age of enthusiasm.
You are what you are, a solitary voice
resounding on the outskirts of cities.
The words they addressed to you passed too
like the dazzling leaves.
This is a different world, without direction.

The wind, when it lashes,
beats against chaos.