Like Tributaries . . .

Like tributaries to small rivers, this Is love: where the shade is sweet With ferns, where the clear creek Seizes up a moment. Frail clover flowers Join the damp of earth, and gray birds Circle underneath a camp of water oaks— Here fierce as Lethe reigns the monster, Here the monster rages. A day, a moment, Rotten, sweet, with tree limbs crumbling Underwards, and a carpet softens underneath The foot. By water's edge the ferns will droop In heat or cold; they will not be transplanted.