October 1956

       That sea we see of surfaces
   Turned upside down would be another world:
A bone shop, soaked in pearl, a dumping-
Ground for rarities, the sea-maws pumping
   Grecian garbage Roman cities hurled
       Seaward westward toward our faces.

       That sea would yield...

I

Even as you went over, Nietzsche,
in your last letter, as ever, you tried
to reach him:
                     “Dear Herr Professor,
When it comes to it I too would very much
prefer a professorial chair in Basel
to being God; but I did not dare to go
so...