JAMES MERRILL'S MIRRORS

The sky and earth
will receive you
no longer living
by inscribing visions
in your poems,lovers, songs
when August days
offer vibes and embraces
over warm nights
planting yourself
in vocal and visual corridors
by repeated believing mirrors
covering green reading rooms
in summer playhouses
workshops, chances of parlors
as intrusive car horns
prompts a dream interpretation
of mood in drawing seances
once of a reborn solitude
with orchestrated
sated trumpets, sad cellos
on an FM radio
driving out his city moods
in pedestrian nature's ways
drawing mature faces
doing his insight business
by boudoir doors
in a full circle at midnight
from the fullness of summertime
in a New York minute
sighing over
a Long Island hammock
pausing on votive stones
charts, maps of stars,
changing all the clocks
teasing all of us
along the world's market places
by sailboat cruises on docks
in the rain- soaked seas last floor.