Graceful son of Pan! Around your forehead crowned with small flowers and berries, your eyes, precious spheres, are moving. Spotted with brownish wine lees, your cheeks grow hollow. Your fangs are gleaming. Your chest is like a lyre, jingling sounds circulate between your blond arms. Your heart beats in that belly where the double sex sleeps. Walk at night, gently moving that thigh, that second thigh and that left leg.

From Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud, published by W.W. Norton. Copyright © 2011 by John Ashbery. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

I wonder about the trees. 
Why do we wish to bear 
Forever the noise of these 
More than another noise 
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day 
Till we lose all measure of pace, 
And fixity in our joys, 
And acquire a listening air. 
They are that that talks of going      
But never gets away; 
And that talks no less for knowing, 
As it grows wiser and older, 
That now it means to stay. 
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder 
Sometimes when I watch trees sway, 
From the window or the door. 
I shall set forth for somewhere, 
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice 
And tossing so as to scare 
The white clouds over them on. 
I shall have less to say, 
But I shall be gone.

This poem is in the public domain.