To Anna Quinn (1)

You scattered the house that I had built
From prayer and meditation
When I listened to your ingenuous lilt - 
O empty-headed brazen!

I go from you, I recede
Not by steps violent
But as a snail backing
From the lewd finger of humanity

I go from you as a snail
Into my twisted habitation.

You will not always be far away and pure
As a word conceived in a poet's silver womb
You will not always be a metaphysical signature
To all the poems I write.

Did you call me
Or was it the wind
On my ill-carpentered window?
I am awake now
And all your prophecy
Is turned to dust.

I know that I have heard spoken
A different wisdom as
The tree was shaken
Above the parlour grass.

November is come and I still wait for you
O nimble-footed nymph who slipped me when
I charged you with the power of my will.

Over the kind brown earth we bend
Knowing how warm a grave must be
In October.