At Blackwater Pond

You know how it feels,
wanting to walk into
the rain and disappear--
wanting to feel your life
brighten and grow weightless
as a leaf in the fall.
And sometimes, for a moment,
you feel it beginning--- the sense
of escape sharp as a knife-blade
hangs over the dark field
of your body, and your soul
waits just under the skin
to leap away over the water.
But the blade,
at the last minute, hesitates
and does not fall,
and the body does not open,
and you are what you are --
trapped, heavy and visible
under the rain, only your vision
delicate as old leaves skimming
over the mounds of the seasons,
the limits of everything,
the few shaped bones of time.



Twelve Moons, 1972

Entering the Kingdom

The crows see me.
They stretch their glossy necks
In the tallest branches
Of green trees. I am
Possibly dangerous, I am
Entering the kingdom.

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees--
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.

But the crows puff their feathers and cry
Between me and the sun,
And I should go now.
They know me for what I am.
No dreamer,
No eater of leaves.



Twelve Moons, 1979

Entering the Kingdom

The crow sees me.
They stretch their glossy necks
In the tallest branches
Of green trees. I am
Possibly dangerous, I am
Entering the kingdom.

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees--
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.

But the crows puff their feathers and cry
Between me and the sun,
And I should go now.
They know me for what I am.
No dreamer,
No eater of leaves.




Twelve Moons, 1979