I.
Only the wild
Go singing through night,
Go begging for light
Delicious as apples.
Tonight, least angry in my arms,
You sing, and all soft mornings
Of my words fall toward evening.
Oh, those who write with grief
Write large; I write so small
Upon the margins of the wind
That none but the hummingbird
Is quick enough to read.
II.
Winter is the wild song
That sets us free,
Chimneying the mist
Far down the simple
Slopes, where time
Has long forgotten
The taste of pity
And houses wear their
Snow like wimples.
Here, far beyond the convent
Of your music, where
Old men die hardly at all
And young me, too, stalk
With death, my eyes
Wicked as silence
Undream the silk
Between us, ’till blind
I fall through deep valleys
of your being.
III.
We are too young to think
Of death, but old enough
For death to think of us.
Alone tonight, with night
Singing through our wilderness,
My heart like the hummingbird
Flies quickly, straining to be still
In the only sun worth knowing,
And I break roses to hold you as my own.
