Even in a country you know by heart

it’s hard to go the same way twice.

The life of the going changes.

The chances change and make a new way.

Any tree or stone or bird

can be the bud of a new direction. The

natural correction is to make intent

of accident. To get back before dark

is the art of going.

The Slip

for Donald Davie

The river takes the land, and leaves nothing.

Where the great slip gave way in the bank

and an acre disappeared, all human plans

dissolve. An aweful clarification occurs

where a place was. Its memory breaks

from what is known now, begins to drift.

Where cattle grazed and trees stood, emptiness

widens the air for birdflight, wind, and rain.

As before the beginning, nothing is there.

Human wrong is in the cause, human

ruin in the effect – but no matter;

all will be lost, no matter the reason.

Nothing, having arrived, will stay.

The earth, even, is like a flower, so soon

passeth it away. And yet this nothing

is the seed of all – the clear eye

of Heaven, where all the worlds appear.

Where the imperfect has departed, the perfect

begins its struggle to return. The good gift

begins again its descent. The maker moves

in the unmade, stirring the water until

it clouds, dark beneath the surface,

stirring and darkening the soul until pain

perceives new possibility. There is nothing

to do but learn and wait, return to work

on what remains. Seed will sprout in the scar.

Though death is in the healing, it will heal.

THE WHEEL

Rising

for Kevin Flood

1.

Having danced until nearly

time to get up, I went on

in the harvest, half lame

with weariness. And he

took no notice, and made

no mention of my distress.

He went ahead, assuming

that I would follow. I followed,

dizzy, half blind, bitter

with sweat in the hot light.

He never turned his head,

a man well known by his back

in those fields in those days.

He led me through long rows

of misery, moving like a dancer

ahead of me, so elated

he was, and able, filled

with desire for the ground’s growth.

We came finally to the high

still heat of four o’clock,

a long time before sleep.

And then he stood by me

and looked at me as I worked,

just looked, so that my own head

uttered his judgment, even

his laughter. He only said:

‘That social life doesn’t get

down the row, does it, boy?’

2.

I worked by will then, he

by desire. What was ordeal

for me, for him was order

and grace, ideal and real.

That was my awkward boyhood,

the time of his mastery.

He troubled me to become

what I had not thought to be.

3.

The boy must learn the man

whose life does not travel

along any road, toward

any other place,

but is a journey back and forth