Finally it's trade that the deep changes
work with, so that the lives are heavier,
less to be moved from or blunted. The city
is the language of transfer
to the human account. Here
the phrases shift, the years
are an acquiescence.
This isn't a wild comment: There's no
good in the brittle effort, to snap the pace
into some more sudden glimmer of light:
hold to this city or the slightly pale
walking, to a set rhythm of
the very slight hopefulness. That
it's less than patience, it's time or more clearly
the sequence of years, a thickening in the words
as the coins themselves wear thin and could
almost balance the quick
ideal edge. The stirring is so
slight, the talk so stunned, the
city warm in the air, it is a
too steady shift and life as
it's called is age and the merest impulse,
called the city and the deep
blunting damage of hope.
That's where it is, now
as the place to be left and the last
change still in return, down there
in the snow, too, the loyal city of man.