Illustrious Ancestors

The Ravof Northern White Russia declined,in his youth, to learn thelanguage of birds, becausethe extraneous did not interest him; neverthelesswhen he grew old it was foundhe understood them anyway, havinglistened well, and as it is said, 'prayed          with the bench and the floor.' He usedwhat was at hand—as

Angel Jones of Mold, whose meditationswere sewn into coats and britches.          Well,

I would like to make,thinking some line still taut between me and them,poems direct as what the birds said,hard as a floor, sound as a bench,mysterious as the silence when the tailorwould pause with his needle in the air.