Crater of the beginning, mud of death,
endless wreckage,
is this your world,
the serpent you forged
over seven long nights?

Sudden September thunderstorm
then long wearisome rains;
still on the beach the fresh
rush of waves;

And suddenly in the street on parade
the exhausted elephants
and monkeys, biggest of buffoons, dwarfs
falsely cheerful, the trapeze artist
who made me want to weep,