There he sat among them

(his old friends) a walking ash

that knows how to smile.

And he still dreamed of a style

so clear it could wash a face,

or make a dry mouth sing.

But they laughed, having found

themselves more astonishing.

They would drive their minds

prismatic, strange, each wrapped

in his own ecstatic wires,

over a cliff for language,

while he remained to raise

a few birds from a blank page.