Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

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by David Wagoner, 1976

Arrangement in Grey and Black

I wonder how the artist got
his mother to hold still
long enough for him to paint her.

Wasn't she constantly getting up
to bring him a cup of tea?
to find the brush he needed?

Didn't she tell him at least
a dozen times that no one would
want to look at an old woman?

At last, he turned her sideways
and told her to look out the window
while he painted her profile.

The sky was deepest blue,
and the clouds went over the horizon
like salmon, leaping up a golden stair.

"Oh Jimmy," she whispered, but
did not move, only her glance
brightening beneath the darkened brows.

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by Joyce Sutphen, 2000

The Life Beside This One

In the life you lead
Beside this one,
It is natural for you
To resemble America.;
You require one woman;
You give her your name.

You work, you love;
You take satisfaction.
You are the president of something.
You are the same.

The children are clean.
They turn into lawyers.
They write long letters
And come home for Christmas.

It is a kind of Connecticut
Not to be twenty-five again.
Carefully in the evening
You do not think
Of the life you lead
Beside this one.

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by John N. Morris, 1975

from The Testing-Tree

                                     1

On my way home from school

      up tribal Providence Hill

            past the Academy ballpark

where I could never hope to play

      I scuffed in the drainage ditch

            among the sodden seethe of leaves

hunting for perfect stones

      rolled out of glacial time

            in my pitcher's hand;

then sprinted lickety-

      split on my magic Keds

            from a crouching start,

scarcely touching the ground

      with my flying skin

            as I poured it on

for the prize of the mastery

      over that stretch of road,

            with no one no where to deny

when I flung myself down

      that on the given course

            I was the world's fastest human.

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by Stanley Kunitz, 1971