Classic Poem

Perhaps he will press his warm lips
to mine in a phrase exceptionally historic,
which seemed to have lived on lips
in Galilee now that I have already felt

its sting. The sweet fetid dust
of his breath will linger upon my lips
as if my understanding were affected and a soul
of passion and arrogant surmise had my lips

for a moment and then passed through my lips
into the rendering azure of the temple.
It was coolly dawning and his lips
opened, “I'll go with you to the other country,

no matter that my all is here,
my childhood on the plains' grapelike lips,
my father's handkerchief, my mother's tomb,
my memory of games; they go up like lips

in a stadium; all that comes from my white lips
and shall ease you on the unnecessary journey.”
And thus the day did blanch upon his lips
despite the dirty windowpanes and cold air.

He did go to the mountains and perhaps I
shall be daily upon those wooded sloping lips,
so that as he is fleetly hunting goats
my breath will find its altar in those lips.

my will relaxes with the fresh green reeds
which spring arrogantly though they're not sown.
Indeed, they want no wind. They are a lake,
and bend when they wish and do not invite

the sun. They flay the air and do not break;
indifferently they disappear at night,
and just as calmly earth's of them bereft.
They found earth mute and passionless, and left.