Improv, Week 6

The River of Bees
-W.S. Merwin

In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house

Into whose courtyard a blind man followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older

Soon it will be fifteen years

He was old he will have fallen into his eyes

I took my eyes
A long way to the calendars
Room after room asking how shall I live

One of the ends is made of streets
One man processions carry through it
Empty bottles their
Image of hope
It was offered to me by name

Once once and once
In the same city I was born
Asking what shall I say

He will have fallen into his mouth
Men think they are better than grass

I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay

He was old he is not real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water

We are the echo of the future

On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live

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In a riverboat I returned to the cave of black coats.
My oars were not wooden but stoic arms of the world’s
Oldest statue. The fingers of my oars caught hold

On the river moss and were seasoned with algae,
Drawing a wayward map in my wake. Under a courtyard
Of stars I fished for the end of surprise.

But all I found was the end of my tongue.

The stars then collected into a tight fist.

I knew this was the end
That museums from now would display.
Instead the world waited to die
As a father waits on the arrival of his children
Before his that last labored breath,

Before death retrieves his black coat
From the closet and snugs it around
The shoulders of our last moments.