Who made the world? 
Who made the swan, and the black bear? 
Who made the grasshopper? 
This grasshopper, I mean— 
the one who has flung herself out of the grass, 
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, 
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— 
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. 
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. 
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. 
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. 
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down 
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, 
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, 
which is what I have been doing all day. 
Tell me, what else should I have done? 
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? 
Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?

My love must be as free 
    As is the eagle’s wing, 
Hovering o’er land and sea 
    And everything 

I must not dim my eye 
    In thy saloon, 
I must not leave my sky 
    And nightly moon 

Be not the fowler’s net 
    Which stays my flight, 
And craftily is set 
    T’ allure the sight

But be the favoring gale 
    That bears me on, 
And still doth fill my sail 
    When thou art gone 

I cannot leave my sky 
    For thy caprice, 
True love would soar as high 
    As heaven is 

The eagle would not brook 
    Her mate thus won, 
Who trained his eye to look 
    Beneath the sun

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
     And he said:
     Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
     Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
     And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
     And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
     And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

     Much of your pain is self-chosen.
     It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
     Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:
     For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
     And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
       But O heart! heart! heart!
         O the bleeding drops of red,
           Where on the deck my Captain lies,
             Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths- for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
       Here Captain! dear father!
         This arm beneath your head!
           It is some dream that on the deck,
             You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
       Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
         But I with mournful tread,
           Walk the deck my Captain lies,
             Fallen cold and dead.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?
      And he answered saying:
      You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
      You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
      Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
      But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
      And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

     Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
      Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
      Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
      Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
      Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of your be alone,
      Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

     Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
      For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
      And stand together yet not too near together:
      For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
      And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Watch any day his nonchalant pauses, see
His dextrous handling of a wrap as he
Steps after into cars, the beggar’s envy.

“There is a free one,” many say, but err.
He is not that returning conqueror,
Nor ever the poles’ circumnavigator.

But poised between shocking falls on razor-edge
Has taught himself this balancing subterfuge
Of the accosting profile, the erect carriage.

The song, the varied action of the blood
Would drown the warning from the iron wood
Would cancel the inertia of the buried:

Travelling by daylight on from house to house
The longest way to the intrinsic peace,
With love’s fidelity and with love’s weakness.

Summer grass aches and whispers.

It wants something; it calls and sings; it pours
       out wishes to the overhead stars.

The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is slow 
        coming; the rain wets the face of the grass.

We fight all week about a night
we almost spent together
years ago. What I did was normal

or totally despicable. What matters
is I’m good to you now. No
you detect that night in certain

silences. But this isn’t then.
Before my father died I was 
another person. Ice on the lilac’s

ticking branches. Ice bends tall grass
flat along the road. A day so cold
our faces burn walking to see

the orange cat who lives with horses
at the edge of town. You want to take him
but we only visit. For now, we say.

We’re here for now. For now this box
can be our coffee table. In empty rooms
we research couches, watch a sunlit wall

on which my shadow head absorbs
your shadow cock. I believe the side of you
that loves me. The other side walks out

in the snow and is gone three hours.
Where do you go? From the house I see
the ground ascending as the sky lowers.

If I press my ear to the window
see our street taper off and the fields
extend their infinite plane no

house interrupts, no trees, no
upright figure but the blue historic
grain tower no one uses

and a pumpjack way out nodding
its orange hammer. After dinner
you prop pillows in the window

to perfect the dark. Then I listen
for your face in your voice.
We’ll sleep better. For your beautiful face

I can go along. I can agree. The world
is young. We’ve never touched
or talked to anyone.

Once upon the child from her torn red booster seat shouts:  Look!
          It’s the Specific Ocean!
                                                                       & who was I to say she was mistaken?

The specific pelican chased down a flash of plastic lure as if fresh bonito.

The specific fisherman in his bloodied yellow coat pointing toward the horizon
          with fixed devotion.


At the end of the diving board, she was going to wait as long as she was going to wait.

                                                & if our enemy was never water


the last wave on the intake form remains:

          How many live births?


Some languages have the same word for time & for weather & which daughter
          was it again?

A squabble of gulls hovered closer to shore.
Maybe bored. Maybe getting warmer.


          The ocean remained specifically violent

as the love note bleeding out on a paper towel: Be back, maybe.


Specific as the sandbar of memory mistaking itself

          again for rock, gone darker

          down low, where last it was touched.

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.