San Francisco Night Windows

So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet,

Our strict and desperate avatar,

Despite that antique westward gulls lament

Over enormous waters which retreat

Weary unto the white and sensual star.

Accept these images for what they are--

Out of the past a fragile element

Of substance into accident.

I would speak honestly and of a full heart;

I would speak surely for the tale is short,

And the soul's remorseless catalogue

Assumes its quick and piteous sum.

Think you, hungry is the city in the fog

Where now the darkened piles resume

Their framed and frozen prayer

Articulate and shafted in the stone

Against the void and absolute air.

If so the frantic breath could be forgiven,

And the deep blood subdued before it is gone

In a savage paternoster to the stone,

Then might we all be shriven.