Poetry

An inundation! The sky’s ocean broke!
Hour after hour the dense fall drums on us,
So thick it almost hides the hills, like smoke.

Now let the cycle sweep us here and there,
we will not struggle;
somewhere,
under a forest-ledge,
a wild white-pear
will blossom;

Fall the deep curtains,
delicate the weave,
fair the thread:

Wildly dissimilar
yet actuated by the same fear,
the hippopotamus and the wild-deer
hide by the same river.

My weekday undernsong is shared by those
Within the vaulted subway who are close
And ghostly creatures. Occasionally the face
Of votive pallor, timid and intent,
Lifts through the heads and hats of commonplace
And with the shy mouth smiles...

Whether like a deer lightly on talented feet,
scholar of brambles, incredible racer of meadows,
intuitive knower of leaves and the leaves’ shadows,
antlered with boughs to disguise the shallow retreat,—

Past crag and scarp
At length, way won;
And done
The chert’s sharp
 Incision,