1
What we leave behind to sleep
is ahead of us when we wake.
Cleared, the field must be
kept clear. There are more
clarities to make.
The far is an infinite form.
Thinking of what may come,
I wake up in the night
and cannot go back to sleep.
The future swells in the dark,
too large a room for one
man to sleep well in.
I think of the work at hand.
Before spring comes again
there is another pasture
to clear and sow, for an end
I desire but cannot know.
Now in the silent keep
of stars and of my work
I lay me down to sleep.
2
The deepest sleep holds us
to something immutable.
We have fallen
into place, and harmony
surrounds us. We are carried
in the world, in the company
of stars. But as dawn comes
I feel the waking of my hunger
for another day. I weave
round it again the kindling
tapestry of desire.
3
My life’s wave is at its crest
The thought of work becomes
a friend of the thought of rest.
I see how little avail
one man is, and yet I would not
be a man sitting still,
no little song of desire
traveling the mind’s dark woods.
I am trying to teach my mind
to bear the long, slow growth
of the fields, and to sing
of its passing while it waits.
The farm must be made a form,
endlessly bringing together
heaven and earth, light
and rain building, dissolving,
building back again
the shapes and actions of the ground.
If it is to be done,
not of the body, not of the will
the strength will come,
but of delight that moves
lovers in their loves,
that moves the sun and the stars,
that stirs the leaf, and lifts
the hawk in flight.
From the crest of the wave
the grave is in sight,
the soul’s last deep track
in the known. Past there
it gives up roof and fire,
board, bed, and word.
It returns to the wild,
where nothing is done by hand.
I am trying to teach
my mind to accept the finish
that all good work must have:
of hands touching me,
days and weathers passing
over me, the smooth of love,
the wearing of the earth.
At the final stroke
I will be a finished man.
No comments:
Post a Comment