Breaking Ground

I / VISIT

It is no use pretending

this place does not exist:

or saying

there is nothing noble here:
which is true: it is the bottom of the world
the grey sea-bed, where the quick fishes gleam
and turn away. And were there others, once?
we feel, there should be bones: but mud has eaten them.

This place remains too mean to love the dead
or any living thing
admits the day
as pressure of thick water on the forehead-
we do not think to breathe again. Despair
lies several fathoms up. By it, perhaps,
by evening you'll have risen to the dune,
...