All night
in and out the slippery shadows
the owl hunted,
the beads of blood
scarcely dry on the hooked beak before
hunger again seized him
and he fell, snipping
the life from some plush breather,
and floated away
into the crooked branches
of the trees, that all night
went on lapping
the sunken rain, and growing,
bristling life
spreading through all their branches
as one by one
they tossed the white moon upward
on it’s slow way
to another morning
in which nothing new
would ever happen,
which is the true gift of nature,
which is the reason
we love it.
Forgive me.
For hours I had tried to sleep
and failed;
restless and wild,
I could settle on nothing
and fell, in envy
of the things of darkness
following their sleepy course—
the root and branch, the bloodied beak—
even the screams from the cold leaves
were as red songs that rose and fell
in their accustomed place.
~ from New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1993)
