All night
in the thickets of the heart
on the corn snow
cradling a rifle
I followed the blunt rosettes
thorned with their toenail marks
of dogs that run the deer. On

deep into someone's dreams
my snowshoes crept like lenses
of an old scholar across a page
following footnotes
adding my own. But the trees—

I had almost grasped how the songs
of trees come from beneath the page
and break out through it
and throw upward onto a blue stillness
their balanced figures
of antlers and crouching dogs

They're gone now, with all they know:
how to be haltered, led,
and bullied into a van. . . .

It doesn't seem much to bring
to a total reckoning. But
no more questions are asked
at that horse show. They'll step
humbly under their headstalls
from the truck-gate, one by one,
into a .22 bullet point-
blank at “an imaginary X
between the eyes and ears” … So much
for a-little-knowledge-as-a-dangerous-thing.

For the rest of it, their dumb drift
of stars/rain/flies/snow/
wind blowing down out of the hemlocks—

No wonder they made him blind—
Cupid—and gave him arrows.
In two strokes, so, they defined
the odds of love and the sorrows.

The energy of desire
confronts the Probable—
so random, though, in its fire
a queen may well love a bull,

or an old man a child.
A barb is no less a curse
that the archer shot it wild.
You can't yank in reverse

without doubling the cut,
nor push through as it's sent—
for less than your life—what
arrived by accident.

What of the Past remains to bless the Present?
The memory of good deeds.
But what of great ones? Ambition to ambition leads,
And, each step higher, but cries, ‘Aspire,’
And restless step to restless step succeeds.
What is the boasted bubble, reputation?
To-day it is the world's loud cry,
Which may to-morrow die,
Or roll from generation unto generation,
And magnify, and grow to fame,—
That quenchless glory round a great man's name.
What is the good man's adequate reward?
Sense of his rectitude, and felt beatitude
Of God's regard.

The Peacock is magnificent—he wears a splendid crest,
He's like an Indian Rajah in his richest regal vest;
With robes of purple velvet and a jewel gleaming train
He struts before his wifie who is simple neat and plain.

The Turkey dresses handsomely he makes a proud display,
Like puffy rustling dowager in all her court array;
What topazes and tourquoises the foreign Turkey wears!
His mistress plain and motherly for splendour little cares.

The gaudy bird of China with his waving plumes of gold

Art thou too at this hour awake,
Or musing thus sink'st thou to rest?
Dost thou of these dear thoughts partake
That fill thy Sara's faithful breast,—

While one loved image casts a spell
O'er all her soul's entranced powers,
Possesses—charms her but too well,
And steals from sleep the silent hours?—

O! wherefore ask?—Hast thou not sworn
Thy gentle heart is mine to hold?—
Ne'er will I doubt—ne'er can I mourn
Hopeless until that heart grow cold.

Do what thou wilt!—glad homage pay
Right eloquent at Beauty's throne—

I am burnt out, but luckily
The flowers have had their glory and are gone.

The nightingale was singing sweet. Just then
A bean-curd vendor's noisy street-cry at the gate.

Even deer may deem him a fool—
The puller of a bird-clapper.

I have enjoyed the harvest moon
Two extra years in fleeting life.