After we fled away from the shuddering dock,
The sea upheld us, would not let us go
Nor drown us, and we danced all night in the dark,

It is the movement that disturbs the line,
      Thickening the form,
      Turning into warm

One day last summer, Huck and I unpenned
The flock of geese that rubbagged by the barn
And herded them along with our two calves

        Pastures where the grass round granite grows
and not immoderate greenness gives homage
to the long fight with clutched rock & snowcap

The way the hunt progressed, I thought
The fox would hound me in my sleep, 
The way he carved the bottom land

After the winter thawed away, I rose,
Remembering what you said. Below the field 
Where I was dead, the crinkled leaf and blade 

This is the house the South built. 
This is the mouse that gnawed at the house 
The South built. This is the cat 

“So many unlived lives,” she said; and idle 
As gulls in their sleepy drift, a hot and somber 
Autumn day in umber, we talked of things 

Nobody blamed her. When a god comes down
What can a poor girl do—for who can block 
His will? She never had a chance to think 

You who have been to Venezuela, sailed
the Orinoco in a paddle-boat, 
the Lagoon of Maracaibo by canoe,