No Memory Of Having Starred

To Be A Poet Is A Condition, Not A Profession.

When A Friend Calls To Me From The Road And Slows His Horse To A Meaning Walk, I Don't Stand Still And Look Around On All The Hills I Haven't Hoed, And Shout From Where I Am, What Is It? No, Not As There Is A Time To Talk. I Thrust My Hoe In The Mellow Ground, Blade-end Up And Five Feet Tall, And Plod: I Go Up To The Stone Wall For A Friendly Visit.

The Master Speed No Speed Of Wind Or Water Rushing By But You Have Speed Far Greater. You Can Climb Back Up A Stream Of Radiance To The Sky, And Back Through History Up The Stream Of Time. And You Were Given This Swiftness, Not For Haste Nor Chiefly That You May Go Where You Will, But In The Rush Of Everything To Waste, That You May Have The Power Of Standing Still-- Off Any Still Or Moving Thing You Say. Two Such As You With Such A Master Speed From One Another Once You Are Agreed That Life Is Only Life Forevermore Together Wing To Wing And Oar To Oar.

A Poem Begins With A Lump In The Throat

I'd Like To Go By Climbing A Birch Tree~ And Climb Black Branches Up A Snow-white Trunk Toward Heaven, Till The Tree Could Bear No More, But Dipped Its Top And Set Me Down Again. That Would Be Good Both Going And Coming Back. One Could Do Worse Than Be A Swinger Of Birches.