——‘He has an ethic of solidarity with the victimsof history,’ Heaney said of Herbert. He wantedhis vast book of collected poems to be ‘opento everyone in the world.’ And ‘to hold the line.’The Archangel also ‘had forewarnedAdam, by dire example, to beware.’This afternoon, at the Neue Galerie,Franz Marc, Die ersten Tiere (1913)—one turnsthis way on the way to the field.Felix Nussbaum’s memories of crowdsand gatherings (1925), wheredoes that line lead, what are they pressingto see, their backs to us? Will we join them?Knowing comes later, later may beaftermath, or prelude. An introductorystatement is stenciled on the gallery wall. ——Bonjour Tristesse on the Penguin Classicsmug. Which recollects the friend at the barwho kept saying ‘bonjour, Tristesse‘ to anexasperated stranger, over and over,as was their subsequent, brief affair,they’d meet before seven, it was atan end for good each time. Goodness came alonglater, in the form of you, your ‘aquilineprofile,’ as Ms. Hardwick remarkedwhen she saw the photograph takenwith my last good camera, my own brief storyof tea in the cup with the figureof the arctic bird from the London zoowe went to that first Sunday, you who lived nearthe zoos of Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam,to rise to the sounds of creaturescalling for breakfast from the keepers,so triste and wonder pale we were,from each our own pasts, burnt as we had beenby the mere rising of the sun,the good days ahead, the winter gifts.yet to be gifted. One day. ——New Year’s drizzle, nine, every church in the Citysolitary. Empty roads, bus gone.We stood on the curb looking atHawksmoor’s façade. The churchyard deadwere removed for the coming of the Underground.Does it help to remember themwhen hearing the sound of time?Inside, in the long and narrow, pleasfor intercession on yellow post-itsleft by the candles. A plaque for John Newtonand other former reverends unknown.