I climb you, old, steep hill
triumphantly - proudly
proclaiming every step.
Yet never question I
what it is I'm conquering.
Ne'er do I stop
to look down on
that which I step,
nor dig to find
mysteries untold
of what the hill has conquered
Only knowing that
one day it too shall
Conquer me.
And will it question
from where I have come
Outside my house there is a hill
That I would often climb
And on this hill, throughout my life
I would find different ways to spend my time.
When I was young, it was for the adventure
For who didn't like a little fun
And I was a warrior, tried and true
There was never a battle I hadn't won.
As I got older, it was more to see the view
And sit in quiet contemplation
Or perhaps write a poem or paint
As it did give me inspiration.
But now I am truly old,
And I can barely climb this hill.
Sometimes it feels like it's not worth it;
Each time I try, I'm met with a chill.
This is the way it happened that night. I was
tooling and I was slicing. I was stock still. 2 nomads
popped across the hill. My radio said go, boy, and my
company said the same thing. Into that bag of lunch
stepped yours truly. In the dark, I could see only
three beans, each red and yellow offset by a green.
There was more time than I knew how to use I could
feel it nourishing the bones I might later throw into
action. Quite possibly an atomic storm riddled every
glimmering window. A familiar fear gripped my comb
and red wigs flew from my skull. Sense of urgency had
put me out into that silver space half destiny half
desire and now not one thing there did I know to do.
My rooms stood.
i remember all warm first nite when
the painting roared off the wall
waking / and willie in
red whirled around the little black room
like mad angel / i remember forsythias
in hair and crotch and hand
by the river and i found a stone
with a face which i still have / i
remember the hills of massachusetts
& your room / and our garden of
marijuana which didn't grow well /
i remember you warm gentle impatient
beautiful wanting to make my happy only
/ & the hurt
Even as I turned
toward green hills,
I plotted to
return to you
forever. The green
hills had plans of
their own.
We stand together
looking to the hills.
We stand together
Looking to the sea.
No more from out the sunset,
No more across the foam,
No more across the windy hills
Will Sandy Star come home.
He went away to search it
With a curse upon his tongue:
And in his hand the staff of life,
Made music as it swung.
I wonder if he found it,
And knows the mystery now--
Our Sandy Star who went away,
With the secret on his brow.
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud.
From my balcony, I survey the yellow air,
Reading where I have written,
“The spring is like a belle undressing.”
The gold tree is blue.
The singer has pulled his cloak over his head.
The moon is in the folds of the cloak.
The moon grows out of the hills
A yellow flower,
The lake is a dreamy bride
Who waits her hour.
Beauty has filled my heart,
It can hold no more,
It is full, as the lake is full,
From shore to shore.
I must have passed the crest a while ago
And now I am going down--
Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,
But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.
All the morning I thought how proud I should be
To stand there straight as a queen,
Wrapped in the wind and the sun with the world under me--
But the air was dull, there was little I could have seen.
It was nearly level along the beaten track
And the brambles caught in my gown--
But it's no use now to think of turning back,
The rest of the way will be only going down.
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,
The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.
Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol