afternoon poem

march 20/64        kalymnos

this is the afternoon and so it is time to make
a poem of the afternoon, to come up from
under it with a long sigh and to swing into it
from above: the afternoon, the golden time:
to have no subject but the world, life and the
world, life in the world, the texture of life, the
texture of every minute as it passes

this is the afternoon and so it is time to make
a poem of the afternoon (the afternoon is
making a poem of itself)

afternoon, the afternoon, the people stand on
the sunlit quay and wait for the kanaris.

they stand on the quay and wait for the boat:
the kanaris to arrive ...

- Robert Lax, journal C/tagebuch C.PV, 1990, p. 8