for Willy

Out window roof’s slope
of overlapped cedar shingles
drips at its edges, morning’s still

overcast, grey, Sunday –
goddamn the god that will not
come to his people in their want,

serves as an excuse for death –
these days, far away, blurred world
I had never believed enough.

For this wry, small, vulnerable
particular child, my son –
my dearest and only William –

I want a human world, a
chance. Is it my age
that fears, falters in some faith?

These ripples of sound, poor
useless prides of mind,
name the things, the feelings?

When I was young
the freshness of a single
moment came to me

with all hope, all tangent wonder.
Now I am one, inexorably
in this body, in this time.

All generality?  There is 
no one here but words,
no thing but echoes.

Then by what imagined right
would one force another’ life
to serve as one’s own instance,

his significance be mine –
wanting to sing, come
only to this whining sickness . . .

Up from oneself physical
actual limit to lift
thinking to its intent

if such in world there is
now all truth to tell
this child is all it is

or ever was.  The place of
time oneself in the net 
hanging by hands will

finally lose their hold,
fall. Die. Let this son
live, let him live.