Unearth Lyrics

(paul auster 1970-1972)

Between these spasms of light,
in brittle fern, in dark thickets;
waiting in your labyrinthine ear
for the thunder to crack;
for the Babel-roar, for the silence.
It will not be what you wandered to
that is heard. But the step,
burrowing under this parted sky,
that keeps its distance whole.
And that widens in you
at the mouth of cloven earth,
where you watch these fallen stars
struggle to crawl back to you,
bearing the gifts of hell.
From one stone touched to the next stone
named: earth-hood: the inaccesible ember.
You will sleep here, a voice
moored to stone, moving through
this empty house that listens
to the fire that destroyed it.
You will begin. To drag your body
from the ashes. To carry the burden
of eyes. No one's voice, alien to fall,
and once gathered in the eye that bled
such brightness. Your sinew does not mend,
it is another rope, braided by ink,
and aching through this raw hand
that hauls the images back to us:
the clairvoyant corpse, singing.