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“I busy too,” the little boy said, lost in his book about a little boy, lost in his book, with nothing but a purple crayon and his wits to get him out. “Nobody can sit with me, I have no room. I busy too. So don’t do any noise. We don’t want any noise right now.” He leafs through once, leafs twice; the pictures, mixed with windy sighs, grow dizzy, world as difficult, high-drifting as the two-day snow that can not stop. How will the bushes, sinking deeper and deeper, trees and birds, wrapt up, ever creep out again? Any minute now the blizzard, scared and wild, the animals lost in it—O the fur, the red-eyed claws, crying for their home—may burst into the room. Try words he’s almost learned on them? He sighs, “I need a man here; I can’t do all this work alone.” And still, as though intent on reading its own argument, winter continues thumbing through itself.

What over the gable-end and high up under tangled cloud that raven might be saying to its tumble-soaring mate or what the blackbird might intend when chattering among scattered breadcrumbs or what the bellowing of one cow then another in the near field might mean remains beyond my ken—being all noise for which no words will manage though all is language settling and unsettling the world beyond me . . . and yet there’s the dunnock in all its dun colours at work among the small stones and patchy grass of the driveway and here’s the robin’s aggressive tilt at breadcrumbs and there goes the sudden shriek of the blackbird . . . all alive inside the inhuman breath-pattern of the wind trawling every last leaf and blade of grass and flinging rain like velvet pebbles onto the skylight: nothing but parables in every bristling inch of the out-of-sight unspoken never-to-be-known pure sense-startling untranslatable there of the world as we find it.

Not the smoothness, not the insane clocks on the square, the scent of manure in the municipal parterre, not the fabrics, the sullen mockery of Tweety Bird, not the fresh troops that needed freshening up. If it occurred in real time, it was OK, and if it was time in a novel that was OK too. From palace and hovel the great parade flooded avenue and byway and turnip fields became just another highway. Leftover bonbons were thrown to the chickens and geese, who squawked like the very dickens. There was no peace in the bathroom, none in the china closet or the banks, where no one came to make a deposit. In short all hell broke loose that wide afternoon. By evening all was calm again. A crescent moon hung in the sky like a parrot on its perch. Departing guests smiled and called, "See you in church!" For night, as usual, knew what it was doing, providing sleep to offset the great ungluing that tomorrow again would surely bring. As I gazed at the quiet rubble, one thing puzzled me: What had happened, and why? One minute we were up to our necks in rebelliousness, and the next, peace had subdued the ranks of hellishness. So often it happens that the time we turn around in soon becomes the shoal our pathetic skiff will run aground in. And just as waves are anchored to the bottom of the sea we must reach the shallows before God cuts us free.

Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master's ken Who rates us if we peer outside our pen— Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell? Even in a palace! On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here! The aids to noble life are all within."

A worm fed on the heart of Corinth, Babylon and Rome. Not Paris raped tall Helen, But this incestuous worm, Who lured her vivid beauty To his amorphous sleep. England! famous as Helen Is thy bethothal sung. To him the shadowless, More amorous than Solomon.

When the earth is turned in spring The worms are fat as anything. And birds come flying all around To eat the worms right off the ground. They like the worms just as much as I Like bread and milk and apple pie. And once, when I was very young, I put a worm right on my tongue. I didn't like the taste a bit, And so I didn't swallow it. But oh, it makes my Mother squirm Because she thinks I ate that worm!

Aren't you glad at least that the earthworms Under the grass are ignorant, as they eat the earth, Of the good they confer on us, that their silence Isn't a silent reproof for our bad manners, Our never casting earthward a crumb of thanks For their keeping the soil from packing so tight That no root, however determined, could pierce it? Imagine if they suspected how much we owe them, How the weight of our debt would crush us Even if they enjoyed keeping the grass alive, The garden flowers and vegetables, the clover, And wanted nothing that we could give them, Not even the merest nod of acknowledgment. A debt to angels would be easy in comparison, Bright, weightless creatures of cloud, who serve An even brighter and lighter master. Lucky for us they don't know what they're doing, These puny anonymous creatures of dark and damp Who eat simply to live, with no more sense of mission Than nature feels in providing for our survival. Better save our gratitude for a friend Who gives us more than we can give in return And never hints she's waiting for reciprocity. "If I had nickel, I'd give it to you," The lover says, who, having nothing available In the solid, indicative world, scrapes up A coin or two in the world of the subjunctive. "A nickel with a hole drilled in the top So you can fasten it to your bracelet, a charm To protect you against your enemies." For his sake, she'd wear it, not for her own, So he might believe she's safe as she saunters Home across the field at night, the moon above her, Below her the loam, compressed by the soles of her loafers, And the tunneling earthworms, tireless, silent, As they persist, oblivious, in their service.

is a woman burying bread beneath her lawn. praying for summer to make whole loaves break in their plastic shells through dirt like so many hands. worry is how i thumb a groove in the stolen jewel case in my back pocket at tower records, the man puts his hands on me & i’m cooked, i’m crooked, red handed, red thumbed. had enough money in my pocket for music & who really needs that bad? all my father’s overtime stocked in our pantry. all my mother’s edges worried smooth below the river of her boss’s hands. who am i who steals music who sells drugs because i love how it sounds. who sold my own good mouth for gold. a man puts his hands on me & i’m his & i’m paid. in the old country women buried what little we had in the dirt & hoped it would make more better on earth. in this country all food is unzipped from its plastic & passes clean through us. my grandmother’s panic is a relic, is bread unearthed from some forgotten dust bowl still dark & moldy & whole. why not eat the hand that feeds you, i think, why not eat the arm, the elbow, the shoulder? why not eat the whole damned body alive

The harp at Nature’s advent strung Has never ceased to play; The song the stars of morning sung Has never died away. And prayer is made, and praise is given, By all things near and far; The ocean looketh up to heaven, And mirrors every star. Its waves are kneeling on the strand, As kneels the human knee, Their white locks bowing to the sand, The priesthood of the sea! They pour their glittering treasures forth, Their gifts of pearl they bring, And all the listening hills of earth Take up the song they sing. The green earth sends its incense up From many a mountain shrine; From folded leaf and dewy cup She pours her sacred wine. The mists above the morning rills Rise white as wings of prayer; The altar-curtains of the hills Are sunset’s purple air. The winds with hymns of praise are loud, Or low with sobs of pain,— The thunder-organ of the cloud, The dropping tears of rain. With drooping head and branches crossed The twilight forest grieves, Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost From all its sunlit leaves. The blue sky is the temple’s arch, Its transept earth and air, The music of its starry march The chorus of a prayer. So Nature keeps the reverent frame With which her years began, And all her signs and voices shame The prayerless heart of man.

For Ruben Ahoueya Today in America people were bought and sold: five hundred for a "likely Negro wench." If someone at auction is worth her weight in gold, how much would she be worth by pound? By ounce? If I owned an unimaginable quantity of wealth, could I buy an iota of myself? How would I know which part belonged to me? If I owned part, could I set my part free? It must be worth something—maybe a lot— that my great-grandfather, they say, killed a lion. They say he was black, with muscles as hard as iron, that he wore a necklace of the claws of the lion he'd fought. How much do I hear, for his majesty in my blood? I auction myself. And I make the highest bid.