The Flowers That I Left in the Ground

The flowers that I left in the ground
That I did not gather for you
Today I bring them all back
To let them grow forever
Not in poems or marble
But where they fell and rotted

And the ships in their great stalls
Huge and transitory as heroes
Ships I could not captain
Today I bring them back
To let them sail forever
Not in model or ballad
But where they were wrecked and scuttled

And the child on whose shoulders I stand
Whose longing I purged
With public, kingly discipline
Today I bring him back to languish forever
Not in confession or biography
But where he flourished
Growing sly and hairy

It is not malice that draws me away
Draws me to renunciation, betrayal:
It is weariness, I go for weariness of thee
Gold, ivory, flesh, God, blood, moon -
I have become the expert of the catalogue
My body once so familiar with glory
My body has become a museum:
This part remembered because
Of someone's mouth, this because of a hand
This of wetness, this of heat

Who owns anything he has not made?
With your beauty I am as uninvolved
As with horses' manes and waterfalls
This is my last catalogue
I breathe the breathless
I love you, I love you -
And let you move forever