Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me
Last night The rain Spoke to me Slowly, saying, What joy To come falling Out of the brisk cloud, To be happy again In a new way On the earth! That’s what it said
Snowy Night
Last night, an owl In the blue dark Tossed An indeterminate number Of carefully shaped sounds into The world, in which, A quarter of a mile away, I happened To be standing. I couldn’t
Flare
1. Welcome to the silly, comforting poem. It is not the sunrise, Which is a red rinse, Which is flaring all over the eastern sky; It is not the rain falling out of the
Daisies
It is possible, I suppose that sometime We will learn everything There is to learn: what the world is, for example, And what it means. I think this as I am crossing From one
A Dream of Trees
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees, A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town, A little way from factories, schools, laments. I would
The Lily
Night after night Darkness Enters the face Of the lily Which, lightly, Closes its five walls Around itself, And its purse Of honey, And its fragrance, And is content To stand there In the
Mockingbirds
This morning Two mockingbirds In the green field Were spinning and tossing The white ribbons Of their songs Into the air. I had nothing Better to do Than listen. I mean this Seriously. In
Blossom
In April The ponds open Like black blossoms, The moon Swims in every one; There’s fire Everywhere: frogs shouting Their desire, Their satisfaction. What We know: that time Chops at us all like an
Aunt Leaf
Needing one, I invented her – The great-great-aunt dark as hickory Called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud Or The-Beauty-of-the-Night. Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves, And she’d rise up, like an old log in a
Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond
So heavy Is the long-necked, long-bodied heron, Always it is a surprise When her smoke-colored wings Open And she turns From the thick water, From the black sticks Of the summer pond, And slowly
After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent
Whispering to each handhold, “I’ll be back,” I go up the cliff in the dark. One place I loosen a rock and listen a long time Till it hits, faint in the gulf, but
Fall Song
Another year gone, leaving everywhere Its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves, The uneaten fruits crumbling damply In the shadows, unmattering back From the particular island Of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
The Journey
One day you finally knew What you had to do, and began, Though the voices around you Kept shouting Their bad advice— Though the whole house Began to tremble And you felt the old
The Fish
The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the burning Amazement of the air And died In the slow pouring off Of rainbows.
Lilies
I have been thinking About living Like the lilies That blow in the fields. They rise and fall In the edge of the wind, And have no shelter From the tongues of the cattle,