Jack Gilbert
To See if Something Comes Next
There is nothing there at the top of the valley.
Sky and morning, silence and the dry smell
of heavy sunlight on the stone everywhere.
Goats occasionally and the sound of roosters
in the bright heat where he lives with the dead
woman and purity. Trying to see if something
comes next. Wondering whether he has stalled.
Maybe, he thinks, it is like the Noh: Whenever
the script says dances, whatever the actor does next
is a dance. If he stands still, he is dancing.
Jack Gilbert, The Great Fires: Poems: 1982-1992, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994.