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Edward Shanks
The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies,
And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs,
Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers,
Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies.
We regard it ; and this hill and all the other hills
That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep,
And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills
Fade like phantoms round the light and night is deep, so deep,—
That all the world is emptiness about the still flame
And we are small shadows standing lost in the huge night.
We gather up the glow-worm, stooping with dazzled sight,
And carry it to the little enclosed garden whence we came,
disappointed in God
and in authority
I find it so necessary to have
that which is greater
sand and sea and every foot
of this road
running over a hare
on the way home
tell me I will be her
tomorrow
and the heart cannot help
a thin ink
no design in the griefs
which make us all
where am I to look for quiet
and not see a road
walking the fields till dark
I rage more than ever in the mist
white light and simple talk
promise a Zen of salt
like a road in the country
of a hand
the ice on a road
a moth wing
the very me I am
set down in my notes
this day like clear money
to be called for when I please
the lash of a hard day
without any mirth
an old quarter horse
comes to a standstill in the road
no creed
pleased me like music
though my own road
is a wound
I saw mortality touching all things
but the night
not knowing is an art—
a black one
in the night bog
I part with my road
curious about other things
I lack philosophy enough
to understand bread
or the question of touch
she left behind
her road and her doors
her never sit down
her nothing her no
body
the discipline
of her religion
sober and drunk
her living hand
melancholy as a careless gun
her fear her truth
her contract with me
to make whole
the road home
went off and ended
a kingfisher is my other self
in an old felt suit
I eat and go
a raven on the road
studious in the business of decay
the secret to life is being
no use at all