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.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 22, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
