On Winter's Margin
On winter’s margin, see the small birds now With half-forged memories come flocking home To gardens famous for their charity. The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins Hang at the entrance to the
Cold Poem
Cold now. Close to the edge. Almost Unbearable. Clouds Bunch up and boil down From the north of the white bear. This tree-splitting morning I dream of his fat tracks, The lifesaving suet. I
Starlings in Winter
Chunky and noisy, But with stars in their black feathers, They spring from the telephone wire And instantly They are acrobats In the freezing wind. And now, in the theater of air, They swing
The Sun
Have you ever seen Anything In your life More wonderful Than the way the sun, Every evening, Relaxed and easy, Floats toward the horizon And into the clouds or the hills, Or the rumpled
The Lark
And I have seen, At dawn, The lark Spin out of the long grass And into the pink air – Its wings, Which are neither wide Nor overstrong, Fluttering – The pectorals Ploughing and
Song of the Builders
On a summer morning I sat down On a hillside To think about God – A worthy pastime. Near me, I saw A single cricket; It was moving the grains of the hillside This
Catbird
He picks his pond, and the soft thicket of his world. He bids his lady come, and she does, Flirting with her tail. He begins early, and makes up his song as he goes.
Beyond the Snow Belt
Over the local stations, one by one, Announcers list disasters like dark poems That always happen in the skull of winter. But once again the storm has passed us by: Lovely and moderate, the
When Death Comes
When death comes Like the hungry bear in autumn; When death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse To buy me, and snaps the purse shut; When death comes Like the
August
When the blackberries hang Swollen in the woods, in the brambles Nobody owns, I spend All day among the high Branches, reaching My ripped arms, thinking Of nothing, cramming The black honey of summer
Stanley Kunitz
I used to imagine him Coming from his house, like Merlin Strolling with important gestures Through the garden Where everything grows so thickly, Where birds sing, little snakes lie On the boughs, thinking of
The Truro Bear
There’s a bear in the Truro woods. People have seen it – three or four, Or two, or one. I think Of the thickness of the serious woods Around the dark bowls of the
Climbing The Chagrin River
We enter The green river, Heron harbor, Mud-basin lined With snagheaps, where turtles Sun themselves we push Through the falling Silky weight Striped warm and cold Bounding down Through the black flanks Of wet
Such Singing in the Wild Branches
It was spring And finally I heard him Among the first leaves – Then I saw him clutching the limb In an island of shade With his red-brown feathers All trim and neat for
The Chance To Love Everything
All summer I made friends With the creatures nearby – They flowed through the fields And under the tent walls, Or padded through the door, Grinning through their many teeth, Looking for seeds, Suet,