The First Four Books of Poems

Half Roundel

I make no prayer

For the spoilt season,

The weed of Eden.

I make no prayer.

Save us the green

In the weed of time.

Now is November;

In night uneasy

Nothing I say.

I make no prayer.

Save us from the water

That washes us away.

What do I ponder?

All smiled disguise,

Lights in cold places,

I make no prayer.

Save us from air

That wears us loosely.

The leaf of summer

To cold has come

In little time.

I make no prayer.

From earth deliver

And the dark therein.

Now is no whisper

Through all the living.

I speak to nothing.

I make no prayer.

Save us from fire

Consuming up and down.

Evening with Lee Shore and Cliffs

Sea-shimmer, faint haze, and far out a bird

Dipping for flies or fish. Then, when over

That wide silk suddenly the shadow

Spread skating, who turned with a shiver

High in the rocks? And knew, then only, the waves'

Layering patience: how they would follow after,

After, dogged as sleep, to his inland

Dreams, oh beyond the one lamb that cried

In the olives, past the pines' derision. And heard

Behind him not the sea's gaiety but its laughter.

The Fishermen

When you think how big their feet are in black rubber

And it slippery underfoot always, it is clever

How they thread and manage among the sprawled nets, lines,

Hooks, spidery cages with small entrances.

But they are used to it. We do not know their names.

They know our needs, and live by them, lending them wiles

And beguilements we could never have fashioned for them;

They carry the ends of our hungers out to drop them

To wait swaying in a dark place we could never have chosen.

By motions we have never learned they feed us.

We lay wreaths on the sea when it has drowned them.