A man
walks beside them
with a
whip that he cracks.
The cart
they draw is painted
with
Saracens and Crusaders,
fierce
eyes and ranks of spears.
They are
on the steep road
that
goes up the mountain.
Their
neat-stepping hoofs
appear
to be flickering
in the
sun, raising dust.
They are
higher than the roofs
on which
striped gourds and melons
lie
ripening. They move
among
the dark green olives
that
grow on the rocks.
they
dwindle as they climb ...
vanish
around a corner
and
reappear walking on the edge
of a
precipice. They enter
the
region of mist and darkness.
I think
I can see them still:
a pair
of yoked oxen
the
color of ivory
or
smoke, with red tassels,
in the
gathering dusk.
Published 1987. The poet paints, but the various sections
of his canvas don’t come together: they lack living associations with one another.
“I think I can see [the oxen] still,” he tells us. I don’t quite feel it. So is the subject of the poem something other than its ostensible subject?
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