Leave me--Never let me understand,
O excellent reason, rational desire,
Why, those most intense of moments
(The word--like a bell--these bells--)
Can stay in the memory more clearly
Than the now itself. There's the sunset
On St. Mark's, Spanish gold, Indian lapis,
Venetian labor, and then--the bells in
The campanile with a sound like a word--
Word like a bell--to bring the moment
To me, again and again, the light and sound
Becoming memory, transfigured here,
Into me, into all of us: the sound of the word.
