Agitated child, Listening to the words of clown, Charlatan, blackguard, clergyman, And vainly trying to follow their commands Simultaneously, with legs and arms Swinging like demented Jehovahs, The plastic shapelessness of mud Waits to receive your castigated fevers. And all the children whose inarticulate Hearts smashed together make your body-- The burly, waggish rogue Paid to dance in your cabarets; The shoulder-shaking girl Who mistakes one shiver for immortality; The roughly earnest gunman Whose blundering insurrection Clutches a cool device; The man whose eyes are coins Encased in viscous white; The fox-like politician Leaping on small prizes in the dark; The farmer, lending his different costume To the ox-like patience of earth; The manual laborers With minds as minute and obscure as bricks, And softly prominent hearts; The factory-girls who try to scold The murmur of their souls With one hundred slang phrases-- All of them will lose Their imaginary differences In the lenient refuge of mud. But their souls, ridiculously Ignorant of national boundary-lines, And amused at the physical promise Or ruin that men extract Tortuously from life-- Their souls will instigate A more conspicuous conflict. CRY, NAKED AND PERSONAL Conversation in oak trees, Better than the talk of men Because it ends where they begin Futilely. Ferns, and invasion of moss, Waiting for the conquest of words To dwindle with the years And find, in the doom of green, A mute and sprightly correction. These trees do not proclaim That men are fools or geniuses. Their rustling tolerance Does not seek to intrude Upon the indifference of time, And it is appropriate That their leaves should wait to contain The discarded syllables Of human erudition. I have seen a man Gaze upon an oak tree, As one who hates a patient enemy. Sensual desires and mental plots Had marked his face not tenderly. Combat of envy and pride Gained the dilated prize of his eyes As he looked upon the tree. Then his voice achieved The solace of admiration. “The leaves are beautiful in Autumn. This oak tree has a pleasant sturdiness.” When confronted by a tree, Or sunset prowling down the hills, The sensual boast of men Trembles with fear and raises The shield of adoration.