The whole world (Which you said I was To you) Thought it might lie down a minute To think about its rivers. It puts the case to you, Admitting nothing, The way rapids speculate On the topic of stones. The farmers on the Poudre should have known From snuff-tin rings worn into their pockets: Matter is a river That flows through objects; The world is a current For carrying death away. Their wooden fenceposts rotted fast in the bog So they quarried stone posts from nearby bluffs. You can guess what they looked like; The worst of it was They meant it. Rivers neither marry, Nor are they given in marriage; The body floats Face down in the soul; The world turns over. Those gritstone fences sank out of sight Like a snowshoe thrown in the river. The whole world (Of human probability) Lay under that hawk we found, Face down, wings spread, Not so much Flying into it, As seizing its double in the snow. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CAVALIER TUNES: GIVE A ROUSE THEN FOR THE CLINIC by ROBERT BROWNING HAUNTED HOUSES by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW CREPUSCULE DU MATIN; SONNET by AMY LOWELL EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 42. AUGMENTED BY FAVOURABLE BLASTS by PHILIP AYRES PSALM 84 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE A REED by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |