Classic Poem

I kneel down to peer into a culvert.
The other end seems far away.
One cone of light floats in the shadowed water.
This is how our children will look when we are dead.

I kneel near floating shadowy water.
On my knees, I am half inside the tunnel—
blue sky widens the far end—
darkened by the shadowy insides of the steel.

Are they all born? I walk on farther;
out in the plowing I see a lake newly made.
I have seen this lake before. … It is a lake
I return to each time my children are grown.

I have fathered so many children and returned
to that lake—grayish flat slate banks,
low arctic bushes. I am a water-serpent throwing water drops
off my head. My gray loops trail behind me.

How long I live there alone! For a thousand years
I am alone, with no duties, living as I live.
Then one morning a head like mine pokes from the water.
I fight—it's time, it's right—and am torn to pieces fighting.