I like to stand right still awhile
Beside some forest pool.
The reeds around it smell so fresh,
The waters look so cool!
Sometimes I just hop in and wade,
And have a lot of fun,
Playing with bugs that dart across
The water in the sun.

They lodge here at this little pool—
All sorts of bugs and things
That hop about its shady banks,
Or dart along with wings,
Or scamper on the water top,
As water-striders go,
Or strange back-swimmers upside down,
Using their legs to row,
Or the stiff, flashing dragon flies,
The gentle damoiselle,
The clumsy, sturdy water-bugs,
And scorpions as well,
That come on top to get fresh air
From homes beneath the pool,
Where water-boatmen have their nooks,
On pebbles, as a rule.

And then, behold! Kingfisher comes,
That great big royal bird!
To him what is the dragon fly
That kept the pool life stirred?
Or water-tigers terrible
That murder bugs all day?
Kingfisher comes, and each of these
Would hide itself away!

He swoops and swallows what he will,
A stone-fly or a frog.
Wing’d things rush frightened through the air,
Others to hole and log.
The little pool that held them all
I watch grow very bare,
But fisher knows his hide and seek—
He’ll find some one somewhere!

It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.

Winds of the Windy City, come out of the prairie, 
    all the way from Medicine Hat. 
Come-out of the inland sea-blue water, come where they 
    nickname a city for you. 

Corn wind in the fall, come off the black lands, 
    come off the whisper of the silk hangers, 
    the lap of the flat spear leaves. 

Blue-water wind in summer, come off the blue miles 
    of lake, carry your inland sea-blue fingers, 
    carry us cool, carry your blue to our homes. 

White spring winds, come off the bag-wool clouds, 
    come off the running melted snow, come white 
    as the arms of snow-born children. 

Gray fighting winter winds, come along on the tearing 
    blizzard tails, the snouts of the hungry 
    hunting storms, come fighting gray in winter. 

Winds of the Windy City, 
Winds of corn and sea blue, 
Spring wind white and fighting winter gray, 
Come home here—they nickname a city for you. 

The wind of the lake shore waits and wanders. 
The heave of the shore wind hunches the sand piles. 
The winkers of the morning stars count out cities
And forget the numbers. 

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.