Like God, I get up early, walk out in the cool of the day
to see my handiwork. Oh, Nathaniel, thou hast not done well!
I'll post a sign: Henry Thoreau, poet and pencil-maker,

Roots and rocks emerge from the forest path like half-
      spoken thoughts,
or as Thoreau would put it, the earth is saying “rock.” And

I agree, O heart, that my poetry is not easy to take in.
When they hear my work, experienced poets
Suggest I should write something easier to understand.

The world I see looks to me like a game of children.
Strange performances and plays go on night and day.
King Solomon’s throne is not a big thing to me.

For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river—
Unbearable pain becomes its own cure.

Travel far enough into sorrow, tears turn to sighing;

I came out of what was not my mother.
When my eyes cracked in the light,
and I looked up, it was at a germ-lamp,

The thick-walled room’s cave-darkness,
cool in summer, soothes
by saying, This is the truth, not the taut

You bring the Red Devil back fast,
left wrist whirling in the circle
as the line fills the spool—

but no one is always on your side
not even a poet

As my wife buys our daughter her first bra
I wait beside the escalator
with our packages from Sears and J.C. Penney’s,