Classic Poem

The simple seriousness of hills —
dull humps and withers, brown
with stubble or moss-green,
bent as if they could graze,
or maybe were praying — old fidels,
foreheads against the hidden stone —
foreheads and knees ...

Their simple gravity is so great
that they can pull a man down too
to his knees, if he look suddenly
at them; as if the will
crumbled, confronted with such weight
as hauls their long slopes downward through
field after field and holds them still

a thousand thousand years. Sometimes,
passing them in a car, cornered,
clock-ridden, you can almost weep
for wanting to walk out or run
the length of their dry-cymes,
dead-leaves, blackbird-
empty aphelion

till Spring — or Ice, or Inland Sea —
come round again, and lose this hour-
hand hewing at our lives. Oh, hills
have time and time and time
to try the dust's humility,
and strengthen prophets and empower
lovers by their long paradigm.