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Now that I know
How passion warms little
Of flesh in the mould,
And treasure is brittle,—
I’ll lie here and learn
How, over their ground,
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 6, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
This youth too long has heard the break
Of waters in a land of change.
He goes to see what suns can make
From soil more indurate and strange.
He cuts what holds his days together
And shuts him in, as lock on lock:
The arrowed vane announcing weather,
The tripping racket of a clock;
Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten.
When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements,
The window-sills were wet from rain in the night,
Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots
As among grotesque trees.
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved,—a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.