Classic Poem

Now I've seen a brown hornet light,
six points, on a puddle and sit
dimpling the surface, not
breaking it, and a breeze blow him
clear-across like an iceboat.
Then he buzzed back to windward
and tried it again. Three times
he lit and was wafted
on his hair skates. Will you tell me
it was not a game —
and moreover not just then invented?

New things come into the world. I watched
a crow overhead once — a one-
bird barnstorm: He'd hold
a scrap of hide in his bill,
and again and again drop it —
and then in a drunken swoop
snatch it back out of the air
with his claws — against all the laws
of ornithology.

And you too will remember,
though it seem sad now,
how once in the resinous dusk
under summer hemlocks a chickadee
rustled down from a twig and
(whatever he thought we were)
like a small grey priest
joined us together, perching
on our clasped hands.











By permission of the author.