You have to go down in a deep mineshaft or a well, down where you can imagine the incomparable piety of the schoolbus, the wherewithal of bees, down where you can be a drawer full of dust as night comes on under full sail, and the smooth rain, in its beautiful armor, stands by forever. I believe there's a fiddle in the wings whose music is full of holes and principles beyond reason. It binds our baleful human hearts to wristwatches and planets, it breaks into fragments which are not random. The girl in the white dress kneels by the riverbank and, like the willow, leans and trails her fingers in the current. She doesn't know about the damselfly, exquisitely blue, that has fallen asleep on her pillow. 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...FRAGMENT ON DEATH by FRANCOIS VILLON THE MAD MAID'S SONG by ROBERT HERRICK ODE ON INDOLENCE by JOHN KEATS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: HARRY WILMANS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS FALSORUM DEORUM CULTOR by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE BATTLE OF VIENNA by SEYMOUR GREEN WHEELER BENJAMIN |