Bring in the gods, I say, and he goes out.  When he comes

back and I know they are with him, I say, Put tables in front

of them so they may be seated, and food upon the tables

so they may eat.  When they have eaten, I ask which of them

will question me.  Let him hold up his hand, I say.

The one on the left raises his hand I tell him to ask.

Where are you now, he says.  I stand on top of myself, I hear

myself answer.  I stand on myself like a hilltop and my life

is spread before me.  Does it surprise you, he asks.  I explain

that in our youth and for a long time after our youth we cannot

see our lives.  Because we are inside of that.  Because we can

see no shape to it, since we have nothing to compare it to.

We have not seen it grow and change because we are too close.

We dion’t know the names of things that would bind them to us,

so we cannot feed on them.  One near the middle asks why not.

Because we don’t have the knack for eating what we are living.

Why is that? she asks.  Because we are too much in a hurry.

Where are you now? the one one left says.  With the ghosts.

I am with Gianna those two years in Perugia.  Meeting secretly

in the thirteenth-century alleys of stone.  Walking in the fields

through the spring light, she well dresed and walking in heels

over the plowed land.  We are just outside the city walls

hidden under the thorny blackberry bushes and her breasts naked.

I am with her those many twilights in the olive orchards,

holding the heart of her as she whimpers.  Now where are you?

he says.  I am with Linda those years and years.  In American

cities, in Copenhagen, on Greek islands season after season.

Lindos and Monolithos and the other places.  I am with Michiko

for eleven years, East and West, holding her clear in my mind

the way a native can hold all of his village at one moment.

Where are you now? he says.  I am standing onmyself the way

a bird sits in her nest, with the babies half asleep underneath

and the world all leaves and morning air.  What do you want?

a glonde one asks.  To keep what I already have, I say.  You ask

too much, he says sternly.  Then you are at peace, she says.

I am not at peace, I tell her.  I want to fail.  I am hungry

for what I am becoming.  What will you do? she asks.  I will

continue north, carrying the past in my arms, flying into winter.

–Jack Gilbert