tell them who scorn my ways I lived without their praise and will until I die let them be cynical I have my own faith still to question and deny the proud and stiff of neck the small who grub and peck both look too low or high while I but seek to know the feel of things that grow and by my living why no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no step softly step softly your feet are on my heart the sawdust underneath hurts less than I even sawdust, dry and dirtied by our not particular feet it's something deep inside that aches I know not why unless the pride mistakes for the heart that only guesses still will bear the feet that walk upon it but not the heart that knows too often it confesses and breaks I would remember I have walked from river's end to end a slow companion to the light seagulls that circle overhead and I have stood still above the bend that separates the foot from distant hulls to fill my eye with flying sails wings spread I have watched them many times from where the far shore curves around the sun and holds it there ensnared while they advanced then dropped midair instinct with seaward gravitation and hungry claws prepared their wings some shimmering things the wind has caught and suddenly flings in a rain of gold I am not old and yet when night brings me to town I forget their wings and drown now and forever now might I keep you forever thus unchanged against the eventual day for both of us arranged when the rude winds shall bring no promise of another spring but cold and comfortless satisfaction the grave's discreet and quiet action I would not mind the days precisioned to the clock's unwinding flesh to flesh binding would find some way as yet unvisioned some way to forget the fever and the sweat here where lovers have known the soft of hair and hard of bone hearing each other moan a way more conscionably kind for a night's repose but time defined forbids us to dispose of even one brief moment that has passed or keep the moment thus forever fast catchtraps we knew the words before we knew their meaning who asked so many whys while still in weaning how many pitfalls marked with skull and crossbones to outwit those who lay beneath the moss stones then set about to verify the answers seeking in us the cause of others' cancers so found ourselves new victims of time's catchtraps and now must moan and curse until the latch snaps beyond cost darling don't be lost to me the fear was there under the sleeve lifting the hair darling don't be lost to me it was a prayer caught like a leaf burning in air darling you are tossed from me the year is bare wonder and grief drifting to where