024O3U

stars in the night sky
thru the train window
above the snowy fields
the passing evergreens ...
that sentence.
a language of assumptions or
givens, yard lamp glinting in the one a.m. cold
as we roll past, whistle blowing.
lights out in the farmhouse,
that part of this world i can see
asleep, or i assume it to be,
always these windows to look from, thru,
like that poem i wrote in 1963,
asserting the world was doing this,
easy assumption of synecdoche
when what i mean is, really,
that dark farmhouse, cold blue of the lamp
high on its pole, and the pole star too,
high in this sky, around which we turn,
the world i mean.
Halifax to Montreal
February 20,1986
1:30 a.m.
Assumptions