TWO POEMS FROM
"FIELDS OF WONDER" |
|
Initial
Voyage
No one’s moved the road for me
and no one’s found a way
to beat the brush down
through the woods
or make the brambles
snap back safely and on cue.
No clearing in the woods
awaits my coming,
foot or horseback,
except the clearing that I make myself.
But the path to you
was never easy
and the road that led me this far
had no lamps
to light it.
So credit me with being
Chris Columbus for ten years
and never giving up till now.
Where once I hailed the mast
that bobbed above horizons
as my sailor kin
I picture them as rafts
in readiness just now,
not even knowing why.
Later ask the first mate of the Nina,
or the Pinta’s engineer
they’ll tell you how I smiled
even as I walked the plank.
And when I rolled upon the waves,
seaweed still between my ears,
ask them if I frowned
even when the friendly sharks
were chewing on what brains I had
before I started loving you.
They’ll tell you no.
They’ll tell you that I let the sea
envelop me as I enveloped you.
Land’s End
Passers-by do still pass by
and short of keeping you
face down forever
I have to run the risk
when we go walking
of seeing wars flare up
on battlefields as yet unmarked.
If I must parade you
as the entry in my midnight life
or show you to the sunlight
unmarked by my tattoo of ownership,
I do so proudly
and without a chain.
I have in common with all men
a lump in swimming trunks
and most of us have freckles
on our shoulders.
Men are men.
The worst of us are lonely
in the dark.
All of us are vulgar
when you’ve pulled aside
the final veil.
Some of us are gentle
after four o’clock.
Some of us are poor
in pride or pocket.
Some of us can make you rich
in plain or fancy rooms -
currency not being comfort
only given circumstance.
All of us,
and that’s to each man,
need you more than you need us,
we know that
and you know it too..
- from "Fields of Wonder", 1971 |
