Climbs a branch, drops from tree,
But arrives to depart
While his shout cracks my heart.
Lord, does anyone see
All those boys who are me,
And does anyone know all those homes white as snow
That like riverboats glide
In the tide of the train as it takes me away?
Who can say, who can say?
Just my time machine moves
Through the land of my loves,
And more houses and boys and more trees and more lawns
Wait there just ahead in the circling dawns.
A procession of dreams!
O, isn’t God clever?
He’s cloned me in teams.
So? I’ll live here forever!
Nor Is the Aim of Man to Stay Beneath a Stone (#ulink_e95b90e2-4cd1-5d24-b3f3-1d215ac9a305)
They say that we must falter, fail, and fall away
To all that’s lost;
I say the cost is overmuch
I’d spend us better with our will.
The mills of our machine-made gods grind swift not slow,
I with their lightning-arcs and wild illuminations go
To light a path
Not to the grave but walking on the air
On stairs of weather, cloud, and sky.
I would not doom us with those easy repetitions
Of old kettledrumming dooms
I heard from childhood on in dull, drab,
Ideas long since gone to incestuous
Intellectuals’ rooms …
Where they make litanies of night to scare their souls
And turn from birds and skies and stars
To imitate death moles or morbid beetles ticking death
Which if we let them would dig deep in time and keep
Our flesh in most inconsequent black holes.
That’s not my game,
Nor is the aim of man to stay beneath a stone.
To own the universe, our aim. And never die.
That’s mine, and yours, and yours, and yours,
To shame dumb death, leave Earth to dust, tread moon,
Vault Mars, and win the stars with flame …
Or know the reason why.
Joy Is the Grace We Say to God (#ulink_1e89b8d3-4857-5361-abe9-335d3d4edfef)
Joy is the grace we say to God
For His gifts given.
It is the leavening of time,
It splits our bones with lightning,
Fills our marrow