The Perch

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1. The Perch There is a fork in a branch Of an ancient, enormous maple, One of a grove of such trees, Where I climb sometimes and sit and look out Over miles of valleys and low hills. Today on skis I took a friend To show her the trees. We set out Down the road, turned in […]...
2. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
3. The River In my first sleep I came to the river And looked down Through the clear water – Only in dream Water so pure, Laced and undulant Lines of flow On its rocky bed Water of life Streaming for ever. A house was there Beside the river And I, arrived, An expected guest About to explore […]...
4. Prayer Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl Themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the Way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re- infolding, Entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a Visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by Minutest fractions the water’s […]...
5. Song For The Rainy Season Hidden, oh hidden In the high fog The house we live in, Beneath the magnetic rock, Rain-, rainbow-ridden, Where blood-black Bromelias, lichens, Owls, and the lint Of the waterfalls cling, Familiar, unbidden. In a dim age Of water The brook sings loud From a rib cage Of giant fern; vapor Climbs up the thick growth […]...
6. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
7. The house where I was born (10) And then life; and once again A house where I was born. Around us The granary above what once had been a church, The gentle play of shadow from the dawn clouds, And in us that smell of the dry straw That had seemed to be waiting for us From the moment the last sack, […]...
8. Tree When the sun goes down I have my first drink Standing in the yard, Talking to my neighbor About the alder tree Rising between our houses, A lowly tree that prospered From our steady inattention And shot up quick as a weed To tower over our rooftops, Where it now brandishes A rich, luxuriant crown. […]...
9. Fishing On The Susquehanna In July I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna Or on any river for that matter To be perfectly honest. Not in July or any month Have I had the pleasure if it is a pleasure Of fishing on the Susquehanna. I am more likely to be found In a quiet room like this one A […]...
10. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
11. A Myth A FLOATING, a floating Across the sleeping sea, All night I heard a singing bird Upon the topmast tree. “Oh, came you from the isles of Greece Or from the banks of Seine; Or off some tree in forests free, Which fringe the western main?” “I came not off the old world Nor yet from […]...
12. I think that the Root of the Wind is Water I think that the Root of the Wind is Water It would not sound so deep Were it a Firmamental Product Airs no Oceans keep Mediterranean intonations To a Current’s Ear There is a maritime conviction In the Atmosphere...
13. Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
14. In A Light Time The alder shudders in the April winds Off the moon. No one is awake and yet Sunlight streams across The hundred still beds Of the public wards For children. At ten Do we truly sleep In a blessed sleep Guarded by angels And social workers? Do we dream of gold Found in secret trunks In […]...
15. For Once, Then, Something Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin […]...
16. Song A rowan like a lipsticked girl. Between the by-road and the main road Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance Stand off among the rushes. There are the mud-flowers of dialect And the immortelles of perfect pitch And that moment when the bird sings very close To the music of what happens....
17. The Window She looks out in the blue morning And sees a whole wonderful world She looks out in the morning And sees a whole world She leans out of the window And this is what she sees A wet rose singing to the sun With a chorus of red bees She leans out of the window […]...
18. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
19. Water Lily My whole life is mine, but whoever says so Will deprive me, for it is infinite. The ripple of water, the shade of the sky Are mine; it is still the same, my life. No desire opens me: I am full, I never close myself with refusal- In the rythm of my daily soul I […]...
20. Taking Leave of a Friend Blue mountains lie beyond the north wall; Round the city’s eastern side flows the white water. Here we part, friend, once forever. You go ten thousand miles, drifting away Like an unrooted water-grass. Oh, the floating clouds and the thoughts of a wanderer! Oh, the sunset and the longing of an old friend! We ride […]...
21. 525. Song-Had I the wyte, she bade me HAD I the wyte, had I the wyte, Had I the wyte? she bade me; She watch’d me by the hie-gate side, And up the loan she shaw’d me. And when I wadna venture in, A coward loon she ca’d me: Had Kirk an’ State been in the gate, I’d lighted when she bade me. […]...
22. The Otter When you plunged The light of Tuscany wavered And swung through the pool From top to bottom. I loved your wet head and smashing crawl, Your fine swimmer’s back and shoulders Surfacing and surfacing again This year and every year since. I sat dry-throated on the warm stones. You were beyond me. The mellowed clarities, […]...
23. In Memory of Jane Fraser When snow like sheep lay in the fold And wind went begging at each door, And the far hills were blue with cold, And a cloud shroud lay on the moor, She kept the siege. And every day We watched her brooding over death Like a strong bird above its prey. The room filled with […]...
24. TO THE GENIUS OF HIS HOUSE Command the roof, great Genius, and from thence Into this house pour down thy influence, That through each room a golden pipe may run Of living water by thy benizon; Fulfil the larders, and with strength’ning bread Be ever-more these bins replenished. Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground, That lucky fairies here may dance […]...
25. Gannets I am watching the white gannets Blaze down into the water With the power of blunt spears And a stunning accuracy Even though the sea is riled and boiling And gray with fog And the fish Are nowhere to be seen, They fall, they explode into the water Like white gloves, Then they vanish, Then […]...
26. In Praise of Songs that Die AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS Ah, they are passing, passing by, Wonderful songs, but born to die! Cries from the infinite human seas, Waves thrice-winged with harmonies. Here I stand on a pier in the foam Seeing the songs to the beach go home, Dying […]...
27. Remembering Mountain Men I put my foot in cold water And hold it there: early mornings They had to wade through broken ice To find the traps in the deep channel With their hands, drag up the chains and The drowned beaver. The slow current Of the life below tugs at me all day. When I dream at […]...
28. Well Water What a girl called “the dailiness of life” (Adding an errand to your errand. Saying, “Since you’re up. . .” Making you a means to A means to a means to) is well water Pumped from an old well at the bottom of the world. The pump you pump the water from is rusty And […]...
29. Request to a Year If the year is meditating a suitable gift, I should like it to be the attitude Of my great – great – grandmother, Legendary devotee of the arts, Who having eight children And little opportunity for painting pictures, Sat one day on a high rock Beside a river in Switzerland And from a difficult distance […]...
30. A Chaucerian Paraphrase of Horace Syn that you, Chloe, to your moder sticken, Maketh all ye yonge bacheloures full sicken; Like as a lyttel deere you ben y-hiding Whenas come lovers with theyre pityse chiding; Sothly it ben faire to give up your moder For to beare swete company with some oder; Your moder ben well enow so farre shee […]...
31. Travelling Bohemians The prophetic tribe of the ardent eyes Yesterday they took the road, holding their babies On their backs, delivering to fierce appetites The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts. The men stick their feet out, waving their guns Alongside the caravan where they tremble together, Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted down In mourning […]...
32. Bixby's Landing They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down here in an iron car On a long cable; here the ships warped in And took their loads from the engine, the water is deep to the cliff. The car Hangs half way over in the gape of the gorge, Stationed like a north star […]...
33. Love What’s wrong with you, with us, What’s happening to us? Ah our love is a harsh cord That binds us wounding us And if we want To leave our wound, To separate, It makes a new knot for us and condemns us To drain our blood and burn together. What’s wrong with you? I look […]...
34. Trade Winds IN the harbor, in the island, in the Spanish Seas, Are the tiny white houses and the orange trees, And day-long, night-long, the cool and pleasant breeze Of the steady Trade Winds blowing. There is the red wine, the nutty Spanish ale, The shuffle of the dancers, the old salt’s tale, The squeaking fiddle, and […]...
35. Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
36. Ye Carpette Knyghte I have a horse – a ryghte good horse – Ne doe Y envye those Who scoure ye playne yn headye course Tyll soddayne on theyre nose They lyghte wyth unexpected force Yt ys – a horse of clothes. I have a saddel – “Say’st thou soe? Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?” I sayde not […]...
37. The Banyan Tree O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond, Have you forgotten the little chile, like the birds that have Nested in your branches and left you? Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at The tangle of your roots and plunged underground? The women would come […]...
38. The Gardener XVIII: When Two Sisters When the two sisters go to fetch Water, they come to this spot and They smile. They must be aware of somebody Who stands behind the trees when- Ever they go to fetch water. The two sisters whisper to each Other when they pass this spot. They must have guessed the secret Of that somebody […]...
39. Birth-Day Ode 02 Small is the new-born plant scarce seen Amid the soft encircling green, Where yonder budding acorn rears, Just o’er the waving grass, its tender head: Slow pass along the train of years, And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed. Anon it rears aloft its giant form, And spreads its broad-brown arms […]...
40. World Below the Brine, The THE world below the brine; Forests at the bottom of the sea-the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds-the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold-the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks-coral, gluten, grass, rushes-and […]...