shutting it all off: the gentlemen's code

ADORATION AND INSPIRATION

Ways of Conquest

DENISE LEVERTOV

You invaded my country by accident,

not knowing you had crossed the border.

Vines that grew there touched you.

You ran past them,

shaking raindrops off the leaves - you or the wind.

It was toward the hills you ran,

inland -

I invaded your country with all my

'passionate intensity',

pontoons and parachutes of my blindness.

But living now in the suburbs of the capital

incognito,

my will to take the heart of the city

has dwindeled. I love

it's unsuspecting life,

its adolescents who come to tell me their dreams in the dusty park

among the rocks and benches,

I the stranger who will listen.

I love

the wild herons who return each year to the marsh outskirts.

What I invaded has

invaded me.