While watching forests comb those wet bellies,
All grey and louring, of the heartless clouds,
I wondered how the heavy earth breathes
Thus more than dampened, more than drowned
In so much rain. The very snails could gasp,
Nudging toward such daylight as they might,
Grudged them by the endless drops, dropping.
Fear for my crops, standing in chill pools
Or bent, prostrated, shambled, lying left and
Right, I feel, yet not enough to go and see.
There are tree branches, if I go, ready to pull
Hair, poke eyes, and shower me to my skin,
Every direction, along each path and bed.
Running streamlets ease a darkening land
All river-bound, discovering the slightest slope,
Inland being anathema to them,
When Polyhymnia sends refracted light
shimmering toward parched and shriveled roots,
seeking some semblance of promise kept alive
between her hands, her well, her seeds and soil,
A bit of fluff, a female Anna's, comes
to perch nearby, cocking its tiny head
and waiting. Waiting for the hose to steady
its cold blast toward some fainting eggplant
or tomatillo, ready for a burst of aimed
delight, catching one rainbowed drop of water
short, then flitting to the fence again,
shivering. To the Muse of hymns and farmers it's
a game, to the throbbing ball of feathers more.
Its heart will stop without the gift of rain.
I stop at the flower lady's cart
to see if she has roses. There are a few,
with straggling leaves. The blooms
are decent still, especially those in pink.
She interrupts her desultory lunch,
brushing crumbs from her sleeve, to slip
a long-stemmed pink from among the buds,
carries it to her work table, and deftly wraps
the stalk in a yellow paper, tying it,
gentle-fingered, with a thin red ribbon.
I watch her eyes as I buy; they are like
those in the face I love, but the spirit is closed:
she has dwelt upon disappointments.
As I turn away, I see in my mind's
eye, myself turning back to buy for her
one of her own roses. Ha! no doubt she must
Whiteness enough off that coast to last a summer,
with chunks sized to drift among swells
like lost boats rising bottoms up to glimmer,
then dropping from a coastal watcher's view
halfway from here to wherever it is sky
comes down to touch water, blue on blue,
or even larger continents of white
shot through with green, shouldering breakers
with unhurried calm, things for night
to break on, or even day. You and I,
not having seen such before, go out
to frame each other with one in a camera's eye
and watch a schooner nosing among bays
scalloped along fringes of the beast.
The little ship goes near, but turns away
over and over to run, a cur who knows how strong
Whenever we worked at the creekside shed
there was always something else to do
such times as we were stumped, or nails ran short,
or the sun reached round the fir and baked us down
from raftering, roofing, or the like. We leaned,
gossip-like, against the fresh framing
of the walls, sipping solar tea,
watching the edge of a cloud's long skirt
chase the neighbors' horses leisurely
across their pasture, down the camas swale
and up the other side, against the black contrast
of maple-shrouded hills. The horses liked
to amble up to our corner, stand and watch.
We couldn't cure them of the shies,
though we might try with handfuls
of our green grass, or a few choice
A meadowlark
guarded her eggs,
practicing on me
the ruse of
a broken wing.
I have guarded
my wounds from you
twenty years
the same way.
Did I not
remember?
No, I did not.
So you showed me
the letter, written
in my own hand.
All my life
I have been half deaf.
In my room
I steam rice, make tea,
dress myself
to meet people.
I make them tell me
their names twice,
then help them as I can.
Though I play no lute,
I hope they will feel
as though hearing one
lilt among trees.
You showed me
the door. Now
I am alone
in wilderness.
Ah! That then
was kindness.
There are whole blocks in New York
Where no one lives —
A district of small factories.
And there's a hotel; one morning
When I was there with a girl
We saw in the window opposite
Men and women working at their machines.
Now and then one looked up.
Toys, hardware — whatever they made,
It's been worn out.
I'm fifteen years older myself —
Bad years and good.
So I have spoiled my chances.
For what? Sheer laziness,
The thrill of an assignation,
My life that I hold in secret.
Whatever it is, it must have
A stomach that can digest
Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems.
Like the shark, it contains a shoe.
It must swim for miles through the desert
Uttering cries that are almost human.
The storm broke, and it rained,
And water rose in the pool,
And frogs hopped into the gutter,
With their skins of yellow and green,
And just their eyes shining above the surface
Of the warm solution of slime.
At night, when fireflies trace
Light-lines between the trees and flowers
Exhaling perfume,
The frogs speak to each other
In rhythm. The sound is monstrous,
But their voices are filled with satisfaction.
In the city I pine for the country;
In the country I long for conversation —
Our happy croaking.