Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Dedication v
3. Contents vi
4. Dreamless and Possible: New Poems
5. Introduction 1
6. Dancers 3
7. Burning Bush 4
8. Another Letter to the Soul 6
9. The Radio Is Playing Strauss 7
10. Time Travel 8
11. The Hot Corner 9
12. The Dream of ’64 10
13. At Midnight 12
14. I Remember the Queen’s Review of the NATO Fleet 13
15. Tiger Tiger 14
16. Dust to Dust 15
17. Home Is the Sailor 16
18. Face 17
19. Letting Things Go 19
20. Jung Doubts 21
21. Desperados 22
22. The “President” Speaks Out on the Issues, 2006 24
23. Marsh 25
24. Circles in the Shell of the Ear 26
25. The New Creation 28
26. Unaccountable 29
27. Something Borrowed 30
28. “I Have Wasted My Life” 31
29. July 33
30. Mercy 34
31. Visitation 36
32. Love Calls Us to the Things of the Other World 37
33. The Mysterious Courtesy of Fondness 39
34. From The Crime of Luck (1976) & Why Shouldn’t I (1977)
35. The Wu General Writes from Far Away 43
36. Dear Mrs. Terry 45
37. The Bell Maker 47
38. Hymn for His Hands 48
39. Chance 50
40. The Rose Fields 52
41. Figure Fishing at Night 53
42. From Though Silence: The Ling Wei Texts (1982)
43. Introduction: A Reverie 57
44. Ling Wei in Exile 59
45. Ling Wei in His Refuge, Watching 60
46. Ling Wei on the North-Road 61
47. Ling Wei Parable 63
48. Ling Wei’s Small Song for His Home Valley 64
49. Four Crystal Women Stepping Out 65
50. Sayings of the Boatman 66
51. Ling Wei’s First Day in the City 67
52. Small Impressions Lost Beyond the North 68
53. Parable of the Fortune Teller 70
54. Three Leaf-Thoughts for Kuan 71
55. What Ling Wei Thinks About War 72
56. Winter Sequence 73
57. Devil-Mere 74
58. From Sea Change (1985)
59. Aboard the San Juan Ferry 77
60. A Reminder to the Current President 78
61. At the Equinox 80
62. Flights the Wire Bird Watches 82
63. In Grey Water: The Day 83
64. Keeping Watch Under a Lamp Post in the Deep Wood . . . 86
65. Liberty & Ten Years of Return 88
66. Paid in Full 90
67. Ramon’s Letter 91
68. Seascape 92
69. The Voyage 93
70. The Pitcher’s Pride 94
71. The Death of Giovine 96
72. From Sweet Afton (1991)
73. SWEET AFTON, Pennsylvania, Oct. 1, 1937 99
74. Old Nicholsen Himself 101
75. Pale Rachel’s Ancient Point of View 102
76. Master Ronald Westman, Excluded from the Tea 103
77. Cloudia’s Angel 105
78. Eldon Clay and the Reverend’s Wife 107
79. Bluestocking 108
80. Edgar Cloony’s Courtship of Miss Emiline 110
81. The Runaways’ Story 111
82. Elizabeth’s Story 112
83. Old Lecher Errat 114
84. Plato Hall 115
85. The Spinster Annibel Collier 117
86. The Gallery of Plato Hall 118
87. This Is the Narrator, This Is I . . . 123
88. From Memory and Heaven (1997)
89. Alienation 127
90. Four Solitudes 128
91. The Ecstasy of Ceasing to Know 130
92. Elegy at the Onset of Winter 132
93. Dialectic from Three Windows 133
94. Blessing’s Precision 135
95. Night Flight Letter to Weldon Kees Found Wadded Up . . . 137
96. Streets 139
97. The Contemporary Theorist Alone at Dusk in His Chair by the Sea 141
98. Talk with the Moon 142
99. You Sailed Away, Oh Yes You Did 144
100. The Record Player 145
101. The Pipes of Oblivion 147
102. Everything 148
103. Mean and Stupid 150
104. Stay with Me 152
105. The Cry 154
106. Brownie Hawkeye 156
107. The Ride 157
108. Window 159
109. Exclusivity 161
110. From Just Waking (2003)
111. If the House 165
112. The Fugitive Lover Says “I’m Telling You” 166
113. Here in a Provident Stillness 169
114. Like Feelings 171
115. Two Poems, with Death Betwixt 173
116. He Thinks of the Sea 176
117. The Treetop Mole 178
118. The Dove 180
119. Nefertiti 182
120. Through Light Rain I Wave Goodbye 183
121. Close to the Vein 184
122. At James Island, Early June 185
123. From Light’s Ladd er (2004)
124. If He Remembers June Light in Oslo 189
125. Running 190
126. Trusting the Beads 192
127. History 195
128. If the World Were Glass 197
129. A Party on the Way to Rome 198
130. The Counterchime 200
131. 1974 202
132. He Writes to the Soul 203
133. King of the Butterflies 205
134. The Fire Elegies 208
135. A Christmas Ode After the Fashion of Michael Heffernan . . . 212
136. All Day at the Brainard Pioneer Cemetery 213
137. Cole Porter 216
138. Keats 218
139. Like Rain Descending 219
140. The New Orpheus 220
141. Heaven 221
142. Acknowledgments 223
143. About the Poet 227
144. A note on the Type 228