HE

And the dogfish, spotted like God�fs face,
Looks at him, and the seal�fs eye-
Ball is cold. Autumn arrives
With birds rattling in brown showers
From hard skies. He holds out his two
Hands, calloused with the long failure
Of prayer: Take my life, he says
To the bleak seas, but the sea rejects him
Like wrack. He dungs the earth with
His children and the earth yields him
Its stone. Nothing he does, nothing he
Says is accepted, and the thin dribble
Of his poetry dries on the rocks
Of a harsh landscape under an ailing sun.