Is Not My Land

All names are forced on things, yes?
I don’t know. All names are forced,

But things have their own free ways
That get lost in terms for dust,

And, once we can see, the names
Lead one way, while the things named

Aren’t things at all, just long paths
That sink in the waves. Have fun

With your names, waves seem to wink,
And then we, the names, too,

Are waves, too, that wink, sly things.
That’s all these names have to say—

With smiles from bright waves—you play
This hand. Waves are not like land.

How Books

In a calm, all sides are lee,
Was how one book put it well.

You can’t find a book like that
But by sheer luck, like a calm

On a fierce salt sea. How books
Float up from the sea floor mud

Where lives are too small to read
But not too brief, not those lives,

Nursed in the dark for an age,
Weaned on faint sips from the seeps

Of fumes small lives use for breath—
Your guess is good as the rest.

Gazed Clouds

Help sand thoughts down the old word
For god, for the still, small voice,

For what we did, I did, you did—
Gaze at clouds for hours and hours,

If you can. Most of us can’t.
They’ll help you lose, in the end,

The plot and its lust for ends.
Clouds, watched—not read, guessed, just watched—

Will take what you knew you thought
You knew from you. It takes hours.

Jade Grass

Stone hills wear down. Who will read
These slips of green? Who will read

When the tongue is gone and ears
Hear just the weird in old words,

Or when the last one who knew
Has gone, and no one can read,

Or when they’re all gone, all those
Not yet here, all gone by then?

The poem codes its own fool dreams
Of change, of life, of what lasts.

This won’t last. Read it or not.
So long as there’s life, there’s rot.

To Walk with the Wind

I can’t walk. Not well.
My life limps, has limped

All ways, all my days.
But I take your point—

At least I hope so.
You would know. You’ve crossed

The bridge of the wind.
The wind is a thing

You know can’t be still
And still be the wind,

And still be no thing
But all the moved things

Who sing in the wind,
The talk of the trees,

Low notes in the hills,
The tones of Zhuang Zi.

To walk with the wind
Means to bend and lean.

Was More Than One Dove

Thief of joy, brick of the walls
That were first built up in Ur,

Stick, switch, whip, and staff of life,
Pulse in wrists, catch in the throat,

Rod of one and none that rules
The world of names, games, and gasps,

God of thrones, mount of the gods,
Womb of math and charts of moons,

What this is since it is not
That, which means that is not this.

Back of Me, I Can’t See Those Yet to Come

Sun reaps like the wren,
Like land loves the land,
Like stones gleam, like grass.

Your palms creak cool leaves.
It’s a pile of mean
Debts, love, and sun, Ducks.

God is love face down
In warm mud like you,
But you’ve been your own

Sun, last life here, this
Way to hold a bird
In a poem, palmed, frail,

Piece by piece, as if
We all wrote our way,
Could write a way, back

To when it was sun,
Land, grass, leaves, mud, wren,
And you not yet then.

Dust Life

For me, as it does each day,
And has for old men since they

Were all girls and boys at play,
The sleep ends. I start my wake,

Chant my chants. See, here I stay,
Me who knows me, a long way

From gone yet. I’m here, I say,
As old men tend to greet grey

Dawn’s eyes through black leaves that sway
When ghosts glide out of the shade.

While the Boars Brush Past

Some poems, true, you have to ask
Them if they want to mean things

A brain could parse, or if they
Just want to play. We like play,

But we try to bring small gifts
For our hosts, since we’re not poems

Who get to stay whole in mind
Most times. As words of course, bits,

We’ve been in the best hosts known
As well as most of the worst.

But as lines, much less whole poems,
We’re not the type. Just the type.

In Terms of Us

Most of what we are, we were
For the long stretch we weren’t us.

The cat yawns. The birds make tools.
The apes groom. The wolves form packs.

Beasts of all kinds lust and want
And long for good food and calm.

Most of what we are, we were
For the long years we lacked ghosts.

Now, there’s a strange kind of mind
In us, a voice more than song,

And we find that we’re in it
As well, and with no way out.

We do the sums. Draw the shapes.
Shape the poems. We’re still not us.

Deep Breaths

The roars of trucks, cars, and things
That sound like wind—the wind roar
That sounds like rain—the rain drums

That sound like war. Sound, sound, sound,
Like, like, like, rush, rush, more, more—
You can learn to read these sounds,

As I have on thin dirt roads
Well up on crags in the woods—
Which roar’s a dirt bike, a gust,

An old truck, a storm. I want
Them all to be storms but know
That if they were, I’d know fear,

When now all I know are hints
Of dread, signs, time to look up,
Pricked ears. Time to sit back down.

I love the world when it’s caught
In a mesh of its own light,
All wild-eyed, but makes no sound.

Crown Vetch

To swim a pond with no one
Else in view, no house, no road
In sight, just blooms of crown vetch

In crowds that keep the rest out,
As all weeds try to do, us
Beast-weeds too, who brought vetch here—

There’s a thought that has not showed
Its face in my mind for years.
Once, I swam in such a pond,

Far from these slopes of burnt pines
And cheat grass, weed of the west,
Brought out as was brought crown vetch.

Those were what we called “north woods,”
Thick and wet, young growth sprung up
Once the ax left, full of stumps,

Ticks, flies, “all jaws,” “no-see-ums,”
Small snakes, fine skunks, all the rest.
Land of deer with the wolves gone.

I did not think that I was
A beast, a weed, or a ghost
Back then. I thought I could swim.

Here We Are So Far, So Far

It is a great gift to know
Night is as vast as it is
And the stars so far from us.

It’s balm. Do our worst, we’re small
And young, and so is our world.
God and the gods and the ghosts

May play us false, but they are
All ours, and as young and small
If not, in fact, much more so.

But the night sky is not small.
Just one palm of stars in clouds
Pools more depth than life’s own death.

It’s a Gift

I don’t miss the time I missed
In sleep or drink or the rest
Of life I searched for—those days
Would not have stayed for a sage
That could not wait for a fool,
Nor would a young sage have kept
Each blink stowed and safe in mind
For good. But then, that’s not why
I don’t miss the time I missed.
What’s gone for good can’t loaf here,
Can’t haunt a day in the sun
When the peach tree by the wall
I watch glow from my back room
Holds gold orbs fuzzed in dark rose.
It’s what you do hold in mind
But not in hand that you miss—
The taste of the fruit you bit
The one who owns the whole tree
Once gave to you as a gift.

The Whole Land Died

No more nods from the god’s head,
No souled gusts of wind. The slopes
Of the hills hold no more folk
Who keep faith it’s all for them.

Good. I’m glad then, or would be
If I weren’t gone with the rest.
The ghosts of the land were ours
And not the land’s. If land lives,

It’s not thanks to us. We’ve left.
Du Mu, sort of, got the point—
All those fights and all those fires,
The Han fell and land’s soul died.

But no, the birds did not weep.
The thought that a bird could weep,
That the world was all for us,
Whole soul for our kind—that died.

Dread Ends

But can it end in a mind
That breathes, that sniffs at the world,
That still tries to suss things out?

Can dread end and not the mind,
A pond calm in a high wind,
In rain, in snow storms? It can’t,

Not if it’s a thing with mass,
With waves, a thing made of waves.
Waves can’t not be churned by waves,

No more than a pond stays calm
Or could stay calm in high winds.
Rain and hail make their own waves,

And so does dread. With each splash
Of fright in front of the mind,
The mind stirs. It needs dread thoughts

To grow large, as ponds and lakes
Need rains and snows. Or do they?
Could there be a fund of calm

From dread that sank in the ground
Way back when, and is still there,
But is hushed now and can rise,

Seep through the flanks of the mind,
Slip with the thoughts in its depths
And make a well, a black source

Of dreams that spring from so deep
And clean a vent in the earth
That they pool, clear in the shade,

A shield glint in the green light,
Too well-hid for rain to reach,
Too small to be fanned by winds?

I’m on the hunt for that spring
Where dread serves thought cool and fresh
Calm that leaves no mark. Dread’s End.

Why I Don’t Like Praise Poems

We put out our plates to catch
The dew from clouds of white jade,

Dense with shade, lit by a moon
That spins past all thoughts of thirst.

The prayers of moths whose words sound
Like ripped silk are heard, not served.

It’s not that we’re fond of webs,
But we, too, weave, and tie nets,

And find more art in a web
Than in the dried wings hung there.

We’re fine when dark moths are caught
By that trick of the moon.

We just lust for a few drops
Left in the form of pure dew.

That Way, You Have No Choice

If you want to find a way
To stay the course, you know you

Will not find it in a course
On the way, no way. Of course,

There is a way—pay no mind
To what seems wise. Pay the fool

Who plays the sage and you will
Pay to your last day. At last,

You will find me as you pass
Me on the way, or not me

But these words, and hear us say,
Of course, all ways are that way.

Cloud Folk

What is rot to the great beast
Robed in furs, armed to the teeth,

But weak in the face of flecks
That are too small and too quick

For it to see, crush, or duck
From in time? That’s the whole world

For most of lives, from one age
To the next, from when great beasts

All had scales and none had fur
To when the thin-skinned made blades

Fine for a slice from a hide,
But still too crude to catch lives

Small as most lives are, have been.
The fey of the earth that turn

All flesh left to spores and greens
Have their worth, their reign of dirt

And pale soils snowed in grey drifts,
Thick on the floors of the seas.

I wish there were cloud folk, too,
That great beasts could look up to,

And when these short, hard, storm rains
Pin the roof and sting my hands,

I like to think of the day
Rained wings send me on my way.

Off of My Chest

Planck length sums of thoughts slip past
The gates of the signs I shrink
As small as I can make them

And are gone. I want those thoughts
Back. I need them back. They catch
What words are too vast to catch,

Names too full of gaps. The sieve
With mesh so fine no thought’s egg
Could drift through like a curled doll

Built to bank a thing that means,
A sphere, a jot, a pearl dot—
That’s the weir I want to weave.

You think the large thoughts, the news,
The new mean the most to you?
If you could see what I’ve hatched,

What swims through these lines, these wrecks
Furred in fronds and moss that net
Things I get off of my chest.

Write on the Fire

The ones of us, those of us,
These of us—you, me of us

Who are not on fire, not yet,
Who can still breathe and buy food,

And sleep in clean sheets, big beds,
Real beds with no guns in them,

By real glass in sills and frames,
Which have whole panes, keep out rain

And the starved eyes that might stare
Through the glass but have not yet

Smashed through, who will smash through it
One night to swap sleep for dreams—

We can talk and write and send
Lines of text, small words like these

That don’t seem to see a thing.
Oh, we see. We see and hedge

Our bets on the hunch that death
Will come get us from our bones

And not give its kin the chance
To haul us out of our homes.

These lines know the fires will burn.
Each word aims to get out, first.

A Maze

It’s not just when we’re caught up
In a wish no good for us,

In some choice that’s bad for us,
That the mind whines out of sync

With some rough joy in our guts.
Days with no good news in them,

Days that do not squirm for us,
Twist their spines to bend our way,

May prod the wise mind to froth
At the foam-flecked mouth of sense

And still, in their own weird dance,
Feel right, feel good, be at peace.

If This Holds Up

The day that was good, that was
Not for what one swift change

Wrought, but good for what it brought
For hours and hours, a plain good

Of calm and food and clear light,
The soft, bare good of small words

That came and stayed in the thoughts,
That grasped calm, and held and held.

What Brings You Here?

Home is the mouth of a bear.
No one leaves home who is not
Large enough to bleed out there.

The things that are small find joy
In the bits of fruit and flesh
Left to cling to the bear’s teeth.

The things that were large are gone,
Down the throat, or dead, or fled
With their wounds back to the woods.

I would like to be a beast
So small I could live at home
My whole life, but I dream woods.

Bright Clouds

The air moves. The most still air
Moves all the time, moves it all

From there to here—there is no
Shift that does not come for us,

The air moved to make more room
For us, for this, for more time,

More air come from there to here.
Here we are. And here we are,

And here is the air, and there
Are the bright clouds, or the clouds

We can’t see yet, spun by light,
Blooms of the air on their way.

They will get here. Here they are,
And now, you see, the air’s moved.

You wished it would. Or you wished
It would not. It did. It’s air.

Who Leans from the Cliff

Leaves crowd the twigs in my bed.
Words fill the skies in my head

In the guise of a black cloud
That hides the great bird of myth

Who gives the black cloud its shape,
My head its thoughts, me my hope.

The bird has vowed to help me,
But I must watch for the cloud

And know the sign of a storm
Is the sign of aid for me,

Who was raised with leaves for sheets,
Nest for bed, words for my head.

Light Pierced

The wrong things hunt the right ones
As the right ones search for hosts.

Light does not pierce the dark.
Light makes a home in the dark

It would not want to be pierced,
But the dark fades out and bleeds

In light it’s held for too long,
Like the host it is. What hunts

For the right light is the face
That floats in the dark and feels

A faint dance of rain like pins
On its skin as light slips in.

Scud

The mind in the cave is not
Born in the cave, is a guest.

The cave, the host, the bone shell
Loves the mind and keeps it warm.

The mind paints the cave with art,
As if the art were the cave’s,

As if the mind were the cave’s.
If the mind would just step out

And look at the sky, the mind
Would note the scud at the edge

Of the dome of land and light
And know the storm on its way

Comes to wash minds out of caves.
Go back, mind. Come back and hide.
 

One Leaf

That is what you are, you know.
It’s not just a small, cute way
To say you’re like this or that—

The woods are a scrap of world,
A thin and ripped rag of lives
That are at the same time vast

And dark, dense with great, thick trunks
Gnarled on their deep mats of roots
That reach to worlds you can’t touch

Since you are one of the leaves
And all you know is one life
Of the lives massed on each branch

Of each trunk of each root web
Of the great wood of thin rags
Caught on the stones of a world.

Steal Gods

You could say it was a trope
If I wrote we work like ants
And sing like frogs in spring pools,

And you would be right as rain
As well as wrong. We do sing
In massed, loud groups of roped tunes—

We do move vast troves of earth.
These are things we do, not things
We steal from lives not quite ours.

My point is that we’re a part
Of what this gob of rock does
And does a lot. If we steal,

We steal from gods whom we stole
From our songs as our songs tuned
Our words to steal gods from us.

The Town That Did Not Drown

Like most folks, I keep the faith
For things I would like to be

Truths that are not true,
That could not be true—

I save my faith for those things.
Why waste faith on what could be

A true thing all on its own?

An Oak or an Owl Can Be Coal

If they die but do not rot—
Coal comes from death that did not

Go back, the most part, to life.
Poised on the edge of the knife,

With one side of the blade peat
And the far side air that eats

And breaks and brings back to breath
The strain that was eased by death,

What was, for a short while, oak
Must come down as ghost or smoke.

What Lies in the Mist Lies to the Clouds

Do the years pass the same way
For those who move, those who stay?

Time shakes the trees of the mind,
And what falls is the same kind

Of bruised fruit, twigs, and torn leaves
For those who stay, those who leave,

But it’s strange to see these woods
On the move, as if they could

Chase that ice to the sea’s edge
To watch it melt from a ledge

Past which no mind can root down.
The waves rise. The salt thoughts drown.

For a Life Half Spent in Strange Lands

I have seen. These eyes have seen
A dirt road, a blue-grey moon

Dull on the snow of a page
Cut with bird-toed tracks of print.

How much have you seen that was
What you saw when you looked up

From a book wedged in your lap?
How much have you heard, smelled, felt

That was just what the small birds
Who left those tracks on their way

To what birds care for more—song,
Seeds, eggs, nests, a look-out perch—

Did not mean for you to know?
It’s not the tracks—it’s the snow.

Egg’s Grave Grove

Bright and dim. Spots of light fly
As if they had wings. They don’t.

The wings have them, kinds of waves,
Soot in the air, a pale dust

The woods can’t shake from their twigs.
You know how well dry grass burns.

Now we must sink. The winged snake
That coils in coins of light comes

Down in a cloud, smoke and fire.
Now it sinks in. Such small teeth

For such a great beast in heat.
This snake needs warmth for its eggs

To hatch. It’s too cool in here,
In the grove that will not burn

And has been known to freeze still.
Here is an egg. It won’t hatch,

Not for more years than you’ll live.
But it will last. If not crushed,

Smashed, or cut to bits it will
Wait in the shade of this gap,

Calm, cool, and still. When all else
Has burned, and the grove has died,

And no one cares for old names,
This green, gold snake’s egg will hatch.

Shrine

When will the long watch be done?
The peach and rose clouds at dawn

This dawn came from the fires that flared
By the road and burned all night.

There’s just so much in the air
These days that the sky is lit

Like a meal, less and less stern,
More and more like soft fruit flesh,

Ripe with hints of grapes and pears,
Bowl turned on edge, on our heads.

The more skies glow, the more sifts
From the air to dust the shrine,

Fine ash on the skin to go
With the ash it meant to hold.

Beams

If thoughts grow the woods,
Then lines thread the lights

That pierce and edge words,
Leaf, root, stem, and branch.

Shades throw sun and moon,
Half shown, brought down, dimmed.

Shades are lights. The bright
Greens and golds that stir

In blue arms of shade,
The red flecks of blooms

On the brown and gold
Strewn floors of it all—

These are what the lines
Pull through the thoughts’ gloom.

The days, and, at times,
Nights, would be too bright

Were it not for thoughts
We grow to dim things,

But then these threads slip
Through the leaves and gleam.

Odd Lots

Each word is its own dark neck
Of the woods, each name its own

Dark bird known to sing strange songs
Folks hear and try to sing too,

Not quite sure, though, what they’re for,
Why they like them, why they try,

Or what to do. We’re odd lots,
All of us, mixed bags, all sorts.

Shake us up and our songs talk.
Shake us hard and our words sing.

Who knows which words sing the best
Or which songs might mean the most?

Tunes hold thoughts that hold their tongues
In this dark neck of the woods.

Out of the Bag

The poem comes home in a sack,
Like a caught fox, like a cat

No one wants, bagged up with stones,
To drop in the creek and drown.

Why should I feel sad for it
If I will not drown with it?

I guess since I think of it,
Once it knows now it can’t breathe

But can’t stop what it knows yet.
I try hard to think those thoughts

As if they were mine, as if
It were me, sunk in the lake,

Not this poem left up the creek.
Do they come back? Not the drowned,

But the ones who toss the sacks?
Do they hope no one finds that?

Or do they wake up, cold nights
From weird dreams in which they’ve seen

The eyes of a poem, green lights
In the waves? Hear that? It purrs.

Air

Do we sing less than we should?
Do we know what songs are for,

For real, do we? No we don’t.
We’re not sure what birds sing for,

Just some of the tunes that work.
When was the last time you sang,

Just sang, on your own at home?
When you did, did the walls cave?

I think they could, but in you.
A song is a set of waves

That don’t have a start or stop,
Just an age when they are heard

And an age when they aren’t there.
As for words, the tunes don’t care.

Sly Bird

Fan Li left on a small boat
To cross the five lakes. They say

His great deeds were done. He did
What he had to do. He’s gone.

The owl wants to keep its rat.
If you don’t think rat tastes good,

Let the owl shoo you. Just go.
Skip the great deeds done first. Go.

You can still cut through the waves.
You can row right through the moons.

Look how calm your green lake is.
Life on the shore is just bones

And huts and things you don’t need.
Don’t quarrel with the owl. Row

Your boat as far as you can.
Let the owl feed. The lake’s deep.

And Don’t Come Back

Sad clouds drift scents like those pearls
Of the late Tang poems—moss-grey

Dreams you could not have seen sink
As mere rain dropped from real skies,

But still close to the felt smell
Of soil once a few drops land.

Xu Fu went to find the isles
Where no one died. He did not

Come back. It could mean he died.
It could mean he reached the isles.

It could mean both of those things.
I wish these high, blue-white clouds

Could be sad like that, turn grey
As moss and wet the dry stones

To cool the day, free the scent
From this dirt, let Xu Fu flee.

The Mound

You are if you last. You loom
Large if you last a long time.

So, you have been. So you were.
No one knows when you were made.

Tales are told of what you hold—
A mage, a long ship, jeweled chests.

Could be. Could be you just were,
No ore, no hoard—heap of earth.

Could be the ground shoved up there,
Hove the ridge of you in view.

Could be you’re no tomb, just rock,
Stone hill that used to have peaks

Snow high and sharp as snake fangs,
Like you’d latched on to the sky.

That’s all done. Those teeth rinsed down
To the sea and left you, stumped.

Or you are in fact a tomb,
A tell. All these bones you’ve held

From the sky, kept crushed and dry,
Will show up soon, white as rain,

And you’ll sink to gape at last,
Cave cut for what’s in your past.

To Home and Hell

Sure. On the dark shore there’s light
And green grass no one’s walked on
Right at the lip of the cliff,

And dawn in the gowns of night
That drag the edge of the sky.
I’m not blind. And if I am,

It means that I’m a damned sight
More tuned to the dark’s sharp curves
Than you are. I know what’s there.

There are words—faint wings, pale jade,
Those blue and rose knives of day,
Blood on the edge of the blade—

Words that you and I, this team
Of us, this whole dream we are,
Turn to light on the waves’ lathes.

We Have to at Least Try It

Time gives us our hope time ends.
Time is what comes back to us,

Comes back for us, seems to end,
But then—night’s gone. Next day’s dawned—

Good old day, just like a day,
And good old night, just like night.

But time is not all of change.
Some change comes once and is gone.

On the far side of that change,
Time goes on, but not the same—

This is why we don’t trust time.
It can’t keep us safe from change.

What would it mean if there were
A real end—if, in the end,

We reached a wall, found the line
That change could not cross, not blur,

A stream that no change could ford,
A fixed creek that could not move

And could not be moved, could not
Hold a glimpse of a far shore?

Past that line there’d be no same
Thing—no bits of time come back,

No day or night, dark or light—
No rounds, no thing more than once,

No thing once at all—no time.
Well? Get in the boat. Let’s go.

Now Let’s Sit for a Spell

The calm shade of a pine falls
On my back and lifts the heat.
It works like a charm—this cloak
That takes off the weight of light.

Dread and doubts will scorch the fruits
Of hours with no work for words.
If you can’t chill, then sit still,
Said the thoughts to the old doll

Stashed in the back of the mind,
Left in the back of the car,
Just a word now by the pine.
Look in the eyes of that word—

It’s like the head of the doll.
Spell. It’s all just air in there,
The bare space in which words mean
Things. Dread. Doubt. Pine. Shade. Mind. Still,

It works. If it means, it charms,
A spell, but that means it’s hard
To split the charm from its parts,
Head from space, shade from the pine,

What it was the word once meant
From dread what it meant changed things.
In the shade, the mind knows words
Are spells that make the light mean

And hard, hard to take. They mean
That to mean a thing it means
There are more things that will be,
That must come next. That’s the thing.

If you’ve got words for that thing
And you know what they mean, then
Shade or no shade, thoughts or not,
You can’t help but know there’s next.

Orb Weave

Once the poem has found its place,
Its words all feel they’ve found theirs.

They’re part of that poem; they’re part
Of a real thing with a place

In the great world of named things.
Sun fires silk spun for the moon

By a small beast who rests now
On the branch and waits for night.

When wind stirs the pine, the web
Floats like a bright sail that curls

And pouts but does not let go.
See it? Right now it glows gold.

A deer could steer clear of it
When a net’s lit up like this.

Once the moon’s up, words will fly—
Words like us and you and I.

To Be but Not to Be

By then I was gone. I was
Here where I am. You can see
This me, since you’re here as well,

But the rest of them don’t know
Where I am, where I went, or
That I am at all. They can’t.

For them, the truth is, I’m not
Here, and they would have to say
It was a lie if you came

Back from the dead to tell them,
Hey, you saw me here, not dead,
Not gone at all. That’s the trick.

But, yes, it’s too bad for you
That you’re here, too. So. Now what?
What do you want me to do?

Ghost Grass

I woke up in a stone hut
On the shore of a green lake.
Chalk bones and black scraps of hide,

All that was left of a horse,
Lay in the grass by the hut,
As if stretched out for a nap,

Next to a pile of more bones
Of who knows what, burned to ash.
The face of the lake was bare.

How much time had passed? Days? Months?
Years? I tried the note the time
Lost. I tried to rub my eyes

And squint at the bones and ash.
A bench sat by a long shelf
Piled with pots that looked sealed shut.

The rest of the hut was blank.
I tried not to move too much.
I knew for sure it would hurt.

I watched the waves. Not a word.
At the far end of the lake
I thought I saw a dark bird.

Small Words

Tales told by that still, small voice
Of small words, in which things go

Well, for a change, for a while,
Then west, like ghosts, south like terms

Of a deal no one would take
Were it not life, all of it—

Those are the tales small words hide,
Phrase by phrase and packed in lines,

Jammed down hard, wedged tight as stones
In the walls of the sealed tomb

That will sink down in the grass,
Down through soil and muck, but last.

Once the words have sunk, their tales
Bloom the odd coin from that soil.

The soul who stops by the hill
To pass a storm in its shade

May find one and take it home
To hold and stare in the face

Of a worn god on one side
With a vague beast on its back.