While in the Harvard library

The other day in the Harvard library I discovered this unpublished poem by a major American modernist. This is the first time it is being published:

your sweestest erasure directs me to a place I have never been;

small rainhands of dew springtime me again as I have never been done

among which; weeds; slightest kisses among; your gestures lilac

and rose me; however you might do; it is never the same syntax;



but then, the rude capitals; sorrowful derelicts rebuke

your enormous tenderness; pay them no mind, though

everyday teardrops drop dew in your facelpalm, but

that is enough; nothing ever was as sweet as your tinyness;



enough but still, in stillness of rebuttal; pay them no heart;

they have never known directness as direct as thou art;

blinking you might have missed it; how tender the reality seems



under snow; snowdrifts of salt. I’d love to stay and explain

but hours grow late; later than lates have latented.

Only the snarks complain. You and I not.