The Long Problem                


I.                        

The long problem, the old problem,

Is not seen in the streets of day.

They have buried, buried, buried it

Put it down, under long hours of passion and of clay.

They have suppressed it, they have nullified

The old problem, the old problem,

So that the wheel may turn and the names be called

They have hidden the old problem away.



Money streets are walled with suits

And the hot sweets calling

That drip syrup on the fingers of men

Twined in the crisp leaf-fall?s scream

And the long problem echoes when it is allowed

In the hour of the dream. Balls

And the cold-climaxed dance deny while flying

Through the long problem?s halls.


Burials fade, and the long problem returns

A deal of well-suited clay cries in it

And the old wheel?s fire burns to its tune

And the crisped leaf crying.




II.                        

Answers are in communication:

The faces will flow

And the plenum reveal

And the denial be known

And the far northern call be heard

And the leaves transform, each

To its own kind of bird

As the wheel runs back

And the burial is undone

And the unspoken, known,

Advises the becoming.

All streets will as rivers

Advance to the delta call

?Auroroa! Aurora! Aurora!? tells

All there is, while the suits are falling.

All balls are cancelled by the flux,

The plenum explains, and the warm river-climax

Echoes the answers when the long problem falls.

Now is the beginning. Tell Edna. She, too, will answer.

Answers are in communication,

And the long problem falling