Paterson lies in the valley under the Passaic Fallsits spent waters forming the outline of his back.
Helies on his right side, head near the thunderof the waters filling his dreams!
Eternally asleep,his dreams walk about the city where he persistsincognito.
Butterflies settle on his stone ear.
Immortal he neither moves nor rouses and is seldomseen, though he breathes and the subtleties of his machinationsdrawing their substance from the noise of the pouring riveranimate a thousand automations.
Who because theyneither know their sources nor the sills of theirdisappointments walk outside their bodies aimlessly for the most part,locked and forgot in their desires-unroused. —Say it, no ideas but in things— nothing but the blank faces of the houses and cylindrical trees bent, forked by preconception and accident— split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained— secret—into the body of the light!
From above, higher than the spires, highereven than the office towers, from oozy fieldsabandoned to gray beds of dead grass,black sumac, withered weed-stalks,mud and thickets cluttered with dead leaves-the river comes pouring in above the cityand crashes from the edge of the gorgein a recoil of spray and rainbow mists- (What common language to unravel? . . .combed into straight lines from that rafter of a rock's lip.)A man like a city and a woman like a flower—who are in love.
Two women.
Three women.
Innumerable women, each like a flower. Butonly one man—like a city.
