Collected Poems

A SONG FOR THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

2 But the land is deep in sound. The sleepy hares and crickets Remember how to cry. The birds have not forgotten (The tanager, the sparrow) The tumbled, rising tone. 3 The sounds go on, and on, In spite of what the morning Or evening dark has done. We have no holy voices Like yours to lift above us, Yet we cannot be still. 4 All earth is loud enough. Then why should I be sorry (The owl scritches alive) To stand before a shadow, And see a cold piano Half hidden by a drape? 5 No reason I can give. Uttering tongues are busy, Mount the diminished air (The breathing and the echo) Enough to keep the ear Half satisfied forever. A SONG FOR THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT By way of explaining to my son the following curse by Eustace Deschamps: "Happy is he who has no children; for babies bring nothing but crying and stench." Now first of all he means the night You beat the crib and cried 22 And brought me spinning out of bed To powder your backside. I rolled your buttocks over And I could not complain: Legs up, la la, legs down, la la, Back to sleep again. Now second of all he means the day You dabbled out of doors And dragged a dead cat Billy-be-damned Across the kitchen floors. I rolled your buttocks over And made you sing for pain: Legs up, la la, legs down, la la, Back to sleep again. But third of all my father once Laid me across his knee And solved the trouble when he beat The yowling out of me. He rocked me on his shoulder When razor straps were vain: Legs up, la la, legs down, la la, Back to sleep again. So roll upon your belly, boy, And bother being cursed. You turn the household upside down, But you are not the first. Deschamps the poet blubbered too, For all his fool disdain: Legs up, la la, legs down, la la, Back to sleep again. A PRESENTATION OF TWO BIRDS TO MY SON Chicken. How shall I tell you what it is, And why it does not float with tanagers? Its ecstasy is dead, it docs not care. from THE GREEN WALL 23 ...