I consider a song will be as humming-bird

swift, down-light, missile-metal-hard, & strange

as the world of anti-matter

where they are wondering: does time run backward—

which the poet thought was true; Scarlatti-supple;

but can Henry write it?

Wreckt, in deep danger, he shook once his head,

returning to meditation. And word had sped

all from the farthest West

that Henry was desired: can he get free

of the hanging menace, & this all, and go?

He doesn’t think so.

Therefore he shakes and he will sing no more,

much less a song as fast as said, as light,

so deep, so flexing. He broods.

He may, rehearsing, here of his bad year

at the very end, in squalor, ill, outside.

—Happy New Year, Mr Bones.