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The SaltMarsh Once you have let the first blade Spring back behind you To the way it has always been, You no longer know where you are. All you can see are the tall Stalks ofsawgrass, not sawing, But each ofthem holding its tip Exactly at the level where your hair Begins to grow from your forehead. Wherever you come to is The same as before, With the same blades ofoversized grass, And wherever you stop, the one Blade just in front ofyou leans, That one only, and touches you At the place where your hair begins To grow; at that predestined touch Your spine tingles crystally, like salt, And the image ofa crane occurs, Each flap ofits wings creating Its feathers anew, this time whiter, As the sun destroys all points Ofthe compass, refusing to move From its chosen noon. Where is the place you have come from With your buried steps full ofnew roots? You cannot leap up to look out, Yet you do not sink, But seem to grow, and the sound, The oldest ofsounds, is your breath Sighing like acres. Ifyou stand as you are for long, Green panic may finally give Way to another sensation, For when the embodying wind Rises, the grasses begin to weave Drowning with Others / I3 0 A little, then all together, Not bending enough for you To see your way clear ofthe swaying, But moving just the same, And nothing prevents your bending With them, helping their wave Upon wave upon wave upon wave 13y not opposing, By willing your supple inclusion Among fields without promise ofharvest, In their marvelous, spiritual walking Everywhere, anywhere. In theMountain Tent I am hearing the shape ofthe rain Take the shape ofthe tent and believe it, Laying down all around where I lie A profound, unspeakable law. I obey, and am free-falling slowly Through the thought-out leaves ofthe wood Into the minds ofanimals. I am there in the shining ofwater Like dark, like light, out ofHeaven. I am there like the dead, or the beast Itself, which thinks ofa poemGr ~en, plausible, living, and holyAnd cannot speak, but hears, Called forth from the waiting ofthings, A vast, proper, reinforced crying With the sifted, harmonious pause, The sustained intake ofall breath Before the first word ofthe Bible. At midnight water dawns Upon the held skulls ofthe foxes And weasels and tousled hares In the Mountain Tent / I3 I ...

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