Nightmare While Flying
All our city lights,
all our human might,
all our gardens, graces, greatness;
all our hair-thin roads,
all our troubles and our goads:
gold dust in the darkness.
All our hopes and deeds,
all our wants and needs,
all our worries, wonders, wars;
all the things we know,
blurred to a gold-green glow,
gold dust in the darkness.
All our palatial spaces,
all our care-worn faces,
all our crying, dying, rising;
all our engines and machines,
all our lanterns, wires, screens,
gold dust in the darkness.
All our goodness and our waste,
all our fashion and our taste,
all our vision, fission, fire,
our sinning hid by silence,
our safety and our violence,
gold dust in the darkness,
and despair:
all the progress of our nation
as the hope of desperation,
the collapsing of creation,
and a falling through the air.
What Great Poems Say
The sky is blue, the sun is bright,
the grass is green, the clouds are white,
the rose is red and touched with dew,
the sunrise starts the day anew,
in autumn splendor bright leaves fall,
death is sad and takes us all,
the love of friends is bright with glow,
great poems say what all hearts know.
Matutinal
In the silent distance I can hear
the tumult of the dogs a-glow
as they bound on clouds and bay;
a shaft shoots swiftly forth,
striking the fleeing beast.
It staggers, stumbles, falls.
The sun leaps up and in smooth stroke
slits the throat of darkness.
