Between the Root and the Flower

Black Fish Press, 1982

from September

Without strength or anger a bee
buzzes in my hand: already
somewhere there are queenless hives
and disheartened torpor among these beings
with no knowledge and no sadness.
In the light of this noon already
a crystal splinter, seed
of marvelous ice, begins to stir.

from Permanance of Evening

The result of my laudable attempts
to “deal boldly with substantial things:”
the river is never the same, but then
it is never any different, and all I want
is to be awakened every moment by dawn
in a place no one’s ever seen.

While this individual title is out of print, the book has been collected in Early Poems.