Dancers Exercising
Frame within frame, the evolving conversation
is dancelike, as though two could play
at improvising snowflakes’ . . .
Frame within frame, the evolving conversation
is dancelike, as though two could play
at improvising snowflakes’ . . .
If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping . . .
I would my soul were like the bird
That dares the vastness undeterred.
Look, where the bluebird on the bough . . .
Then came the darker sooner,
came the later lower.
We were no longer a sweeter-here . . .
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate . . .
Every morning since the time changed
I have woken to the dawn chorus
And even before it sounded, I dreamed of it . . .
O the days gone by! O the days gone by!
The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;
The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail . . .
His clumsy body is a golden fruit
pendulous in the pear tree
. . .
I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions
that used to pose, robed and statuesque, in paintings
and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance
. . .
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets . . .