WHY I HAVE SO FIRM A GRASP ON LATE 17TH CENTURY ECCLESIASTIC POLITICS

Certain memories I store in the episcopal palace
So its ghosts are used to me, nodding
When I come searching for the box where I keep
The stairway I climbed every day for most of 1975
Or putting away again the Krebs Cycle
Which I memorized in 1969; I've come near
To tossing it a dozen times but somehow
Never have.

In the garden stroll the disgraced bishop
And his highborn but slightly damaged mistress.
Following them at a discreet distance
Servants sweep out their footprints
Or would if ghosts left footprints.
At night, I have reason to believe,
The bishop -- something of a scholar,
Something of a rascal, something of a poet --
Rearranges the boxes I keep in his palace
And hides some of his memories with mine.

PATRONAGE

Patron of the poor! Also of poets,
Poultry farmers, printing presses,
Fugitives, babies, scholars,
Mariners, midwives and milkmaids!
All these and more is Brigid.
Somewhere, a poor scholarly poet,
All agrime with printer's ink,
With a baby under one arm
And a chicken under the other
Looks to flee the midwives' wrath
By taking to the sea. Alas for him!
Brigid also smiles on nuns
And blacksmiths. Even now,
A burly bride of Christ speaks a name
To the red metal of a new-forged sword.