a late note to the difficult one

w.s. graham wrote, in a letter to his late friend, bryan wynter (see the meanders of paint above)--'this is only a note to say how sorry i am you died. you will realise what a position it puts me in...speaking to you and not knowing if you are there is not too difficult, my words are used to that.' graham's dialogue-elegies have a shakespearean intensity to them; his dark dialogues, his greenock dialogues, are educational. he knows where the answers must come from. he is trying to hear himself speak, and he gains significantly from that kind of listening. he is the ghosts of his friends. it is the key talent that distinguishes real poets.
it has been on my mind now that the flowers are growing again in the garden. tulips getting their heads torn off by anonymous visitors, grasses all ripped up by the dogs, jays and cardinals and finches and starlings skirmishing for seeds. just yesterday i planted the foxgloves that had been germinating in the fridge ('i know i make symbol of the foxglove on the wall, it is because it knows you'). it is the first time in many years that we have had a chance at a real garden, after years of apartments with trashfilled yards, toxic dirt and desert droughts, now a beautiful backyard and a box, rows, hedges, and cetera.
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what does it matter if the words
i choose, in the order i choose them in,
go out in a darkness i know
nothing about, there to be let
in and entertained and charmed
out of their master's orders? and yet
i would like to see where they go
and how without me they behave...
('approaches to how they behave')
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.
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william, i think i am ready
if you are
to speak to you

i know enough to know
what to expect

how you will receive
my eager message--
with an air of indifference

but the wind
on my street is anything but
is almost scottish

almost april
and it whips around the naked maple
in a language you
would understand

x x x

wild animals have torn up
the lawn

how can i be certain
if they sought prey or shelter

or if ever
they got what they were after

now the days are longer
and i will try

to keep later watch
be a better master

x x x

i think you may
be trying to say something
and i want to set aside
the words

like the packet
of foxglove seeds
waiting in the icebox for
the earth

whenever i think
the last frost has passed she shuts
her doors under a shell of mist
outwaiting

the time when
i will be once more
ready for you to speak...