The cakes that were served

All across Europe a partial eclipse

is checking in: Unsudden surprise

and its sister, weary impatience,

mark the flow once the sluices

have been opened a little. Then it just goes,

an impromptu horizon clipped to it.

                                       Therefore,

I ask what is special about this helix, if

indeed anything is. Can you see it, 

its difference, distinguish among halftones,

fugitive tints, measure the rising level

even as it suffocates us? Time was

it all seemed like a party, even work

before the workers were expelled for the day.

Dreams were positive heaven then, not just

framed pictures for the sleeper's instruction

and, yes, delight.

                  So if the mercury plummets

again, as it's supposed to tonight, what shred

of blanket will you deem sufficient for the occasion,

dread or ecstasy, or just wanting to be covered?

A low-grade fever installs itself.

These were dancers once, with faces

and senses of humor. Which of course wasn't

too much to ask, and so she came through smiling,

good-natured to the end. The cakes that were served - 

is there a record of those? Or leaves collected

in the hollow of a stump, something one

would wish to have included in the reckoning

even if it was never going to be reckoned,

or small sail breasting the apparent tide,

on and out of the forever harbor, just this once?

John Ashbery
  A Worldly Country
  Autumn Tea Leaves
Harper Collins, 2007




iii  Photo Laurent
        Russian sailor below decks, San Francisco
        Leica M-6, 50mm Summicron, 1/30 sec.