Anselm Kiefer Painting, 1

The damaged sky is not more black than your hair,

Ashen tonight and floating over the land in blackened

Smoke, where the furrows run with milk light

Or snow, blue and white, and the world-ash floats.

Your patient body sleeps and the white paint

Rises with your breath where the breast sleeps in its

Pool of on-going light. Your hair is the dark shadow

Of all our hair as you exit the land tonight with

Sleep. And lead rises from your back to draw you

Out of this trickle of life inside your body, rising

Slowly as your breast rises and falls, rises and falls.

Only the straw that adds actuality to contempt

Draws you back as the flame will, drawing you back

With its hunger.