Into This Neutral Air *

steaming breath in arcs
curling toward the sky
into this neutral air
wander i

i move among the drifts
sand-dunes, shell-less beach
isolated coast
dying sea

the sand in icy tears
break beneath my feet
a winking shard of glass
Prussian blue

that Death wooed us, by water ^
so ghostly off the shore
last summer, with the fog
as a shroud

i can not doubt, for i
a child of the salt
have, listening, remained
unimpressed

that mortal folk like us
look down into the sea
and up into the sky
and deny

that hand in hand we walk
with devils and with dogs
and chase the fallen gods
down below

this air their dying breaths
like iron on my lips
yet from the misted depths
they still call


* September 1, 1939, by W. H. Auden
^ Cottonmouth Country, by Louise Gluck


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