The young doctor is dancing with happiness in the sparkling wind, alone at the prow of the ferry! He notices the curdy barnacles and broken ice crusts left at the slip’s base by the low tide and thinks of summer and green shell crusted ledges among the emerald eel-grass! XI. Who knows the Palisades as I do knows the river breaks east from them above the city--but they continue south --under the sky--to bear a crest of little peering houses that brighten with dawn behind the moody water-loving giants of Manhattan. XII. Long yellow rushes bending above the white snow patches; purple and gold ribbon of the distant wood: what an angle you make with each other as you lie there in contemplation. XIII. Work hard all your young days and they’ll find you too, some morning staring up under your chiffonier at its warped bass-wood bottom and your soul-- out! --among the little sparrows behind the shutter. XIV. --and the flapping flags are at half mast for the dead admiral. XV. All this-- was for you, old woman. I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can’t understand it? But you got to try hard-- But-- Well, you know how the young girls run giggling on Park Avenue after dark when they ought to be home in bed? Well, that’s the way it is with me somehow. TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE Rather notice, mon cher, that the moon is tilted above the point of the steeple than that its color is shell-pink. Rather observe that it is early morning than that the sky is smooth as a turquoise. Rather grasp how the dark converging lines of the steeple meet at the pinnacle-- perceive how its little ornament tries to stop them-- See how it fails! See how the converging lines of the hexagonal spire escape upward-- receding, dividing! --sepals that guard and contain the flower! Observe how motionless the eaten moon lies in the protecting lines. It is true: in the light colors of morning brown-stone and slate shine orange and dark blue. But observe the oppressive weight of the squat edifice! Observe the jasmine lightness of the moon. DEDICATION FOR A PLOT OF GROUND