7

Haiku

At the window
frozen with birdlust -
the old tomcat.

Hieroglyphs above
scratched on desert cliffs,
sneaker prints below.

First light -
wood duck on the pond
gone mad with flapping.

Sudden rain -
stuck in the car
content.

Through the trees
sun casting fish shadows
on the creek bottom.

lkm

6

Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.

Philippians 4:8

5

Continuum

Some beetle trilling
its midnight utterance.

Voice of the scarabee,
dungroller,
working survivor ...

I recall how each year
returning from voyages, flights
over sundown snowpeaks,
cities crouched over darkening lakes,
hamlets of wood and smoke,
I find
-----the same blind face upturned to the light
-----and singing
-----the one song,

-----the same weed managing
-----its brood of minute stars
-----in the cracked flagstone.

--Denise Levertov


To the Reader

As you read, a white bear leisurely
pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,

and as you read, many gods
lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,

and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its dark pages.

--Denise Levertov

4

Look at six eggs
in a mockingbird's nest

Listen to six mockingbirds
flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
hidden in eggs.

--Carl Sandburg

3

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

--William Stafford

2

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

1

From "O, Thou Opening, O"

Stand by a slow stream:
Hear the sigh of what is.
Be a pleased rock
On a plain day.

--Theodore Roethke