It would have made no difference who
commanded us in those first hours . . .
                                —veteran, invasion of Normandy, 1944

“Nothing he had done before
   or would try for later”
         will explain or atone

(1.1)            The world's the total sum of all the facts,
                        which means a poor account of human
                           acts:

Grouped in the dusk at the station, blameless
and undaunted behind the burn of one shared cigarette,
this circle of children, their wronged can of animate garbage,

The thump of the newspaper on the porch
on Christmas Day, in the dark before dawn
yet after Santa Claus has left his gifts:

there were faults, ducts formed by the earth tearing
our cities apart. Out of this madness, a cry mounted

as if by name, cursed what sky lay just above Zo'ar,

If your name is on the list of judges
you're one of them
though you fought their hardening

I stare out the plate glass window
At sky over the Boston Common
Where seagulls coast past

Death will come and have your eyes.
This one, the one who abides
morning to night, the deaf one,

In evening light's splayed radiance,
in a field of scrub and vines hedging a river,
a boy found a black snake sunning itself.