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Am I Not Among the Early Risers
    Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?
    Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?
    Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
    What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
    What countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
    Here is an amazement—once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
    Above the modest house and the palace—the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
    Above the child who will
recover and the child who will not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.
    I bow down.
    Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment,
or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other than mine
in the stretched curvatures of lust, or over the dinner table?
Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?
    Have I not, every spring, befriended the swarm that pours forth?
Have I not summoned the honey-man to come, to hurry,
to bring with him the white and comfortable hive?
    And, while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?
Have I not been stung as I watched their milling and gleaming,
and stung hard?
    Have I not been ready always at the iron door,
not knowing to what country it opens—to death or to more life?
    Have I ever said that the day was too hot or too cold
or the night too long and as black as oil anyway,
or the morning, washed blue and emptied entirely
of the second-rate, less than happiness
    as I stepped down from the porch and set out along
the green paths of the world?

Pilot Snake
    had it
lived it would have grown
from twelve inches to a
hundred maybe would have
    set out to eat
all the rats of the world and managed
a few would have frightened
somebody sooner or later
    as it crossed the road would have been
feared and hated and shied away from
black glass lunging
in the green sea
    in the long blades of the grass
but now look death too
is a carpenter how all his
helpers the shining ants
    labor the tiny
knives of their mouths
dipping and slashing how they
hurry in and out
    of that looped body taking
apart opening up now the soul
flashes like a star and is gone there is only
that soft dark building
death.

So
    This morning
the dogs
were romping and stomping
on their nailed feet—
    they had hemmed in
a little thing—
a field mouse—
so I picked it up
    and held it
in the purse of my hands,
where it was safe—
but it turned
    on the blank face
of my thumb—
in a burst
of seedy teeth
    it sprinkled
my whole body with sudden
nails of pain.
The dogs
    were long gone—
so under
an old pine tree,
on the spicy needles,
    I put it down,
and it dashed away.
For an instant
the whole world
    was still.
Then the wind
fluttered its wrists, a
sweet music as usual,
    though as usual I could not tell
whether it was about caring or not caring
that it tossed itself around, in the boughs of light,
and sang.

Spring
    This morning
two birds
fell down the side of the maple tree
    like a tuft of fire
a wheel of fire
a love knot
    out of control as they plunged through the air
pressed against each other
and I thought
    how I meant to live a quiet life
how I meant to live a life