Slumbering down the earthmouth
          Into jamming tunnels
Of coral tile and soaking breath
          (Where redolence
Is of cornfire and hot black pork)—
          Walking once again
Into the brother of a wide grave—;
          Watching the faces of
Those at platform-edge, watching
          The pallor, the jaundice
Overslid by the creeping headlights
          Of the local service;
Watching the rocket-lit path of the
          Carriages as they bruise,
Scraping into the locked enclosure;
          It is only natural
To tire and grow confused, to feel
          A softly growing urge to sleep,
The confusion of death and life,
          To know no body from a shell,
No syllable from its giving mouth,
          No sense from its sound.
It is nature in its pink-deepest mood,
          That place we rarely cross.

All in carriage,
          Little bodies and little tasks,
Rolling on, through incommodious
          Space, into places
Even vaguer: lanes of blush-mote,
          Insect-blood-metaphor,
Territories of xeno-species, where
          Rainbow carapaces dull
In orbswell of plunking southlights.
          At some stage the command-
Spirits will make their cameo:
          An iteration of us will reform.
But even there we may find only
          The same yellow threshold,
The same sweeping lightbeams—