Four from John Thomas THE BELLS: A.M. The resonant morning silence of this room: each note of dust as it settles on chair or bed or book, chiming its own small note, heard by no one. The secret, perfect music of this room. NEW YEAR'S DAY: TO PHILOMENE Up at six. Cereal, coffee, pipe, dishwashing, a shower, more dishwashing, coffee, pipe —this brings me up to more or less now. Commonplace pleasures all, and going on everywhere: eating, drinking, smoking, the scrubbing of dishes and of our personal hides. Perhaps there is even someone else, somewhere, at this moment lying easy in his bed and reading Croce's History of the Kingdom Of Naples. No, the singularity of my morning, its grace unique, is a room's distance away and out of sight, where you sit writing me a love poem. This is the miracle astounding, unearned. And it is happening to no one else in the world. No man is as lucky as I. THE SILENCES Just here they float, these splendid and imaginary silences wreasthed in smoke --or not smoke, quite, but the ghost (fragrant with aromatic gums) of another smoke long past. Except in the poe, I move more slowly than my desire. SQUEAKING THROUGH It has been this kind of year (should I feel relieved or disappointed?) in which I haven't needed to deploy these treats i've kept in store: my marshmallow virtues.
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