“Sleeping In The ForestI thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.”

“I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.”

“At Blackwater PondAt Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settledafter a night of rain.I dip my cupped hands. I drinka long time. It tasteslike stone, leaves, fire. It falls coldinto my body, waking the bones. I hear themdeep inside me, whisperingoh what is that beautiful thingthat just happened?”

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

“The Poet With His Face In His HandsYou want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound.So if you’re going to do it and can’t stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t hold it in, at least go by yourself acrossthe forty fields and the forty dark inclines of rocks and water to the place where the falls are flinging out their white sheetslike crazy, and there is a cave behind all that jubilation and water fun and you can stand there, under it, and roar all youwant and nothing will be disturbed; you can drip with despair all afternoon and still, on a green branch, its wings just lightly touchedby the passing foil of the water, the thrush, puffing out its spotted breast, will sing of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.”

“Percy wakes me (fourteen)Percy wakes me and I am not ready.He has slept all night under the covers.Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter Where he is not supposed to be. How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you Needed me, To wake me. He thought he would a lecture and deeply His eyes begin to shine.He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.He squirms and squeals: he has done something That he needed And now he hears that it is okay. I scratch his ears. I turn him over And touch him everywhere. He isWild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then He has breakfast, and he is happy.This is a poem about Percy.This is a poem about more than Percy.Think about it.”

“The Uses Of Sorrow(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)Someone I loved once gave mea box full of darkness.It took me years to understandthat this, too, was a gift.”