- 1. Poem About People
The jaunty crop-haired graying
Women in grocery stores,
Their clothes boyish and neat,
New mittens or clean sneakers,
...
- 2. At Pleasure Bay
In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
...
- 3. An Explanation Of America: A Love Of Death
Imagine a child from Virginia or New Hampshire
Alone on the prairie eighty years ago
Or more, one afternoonâ??the shaggy pelt
Of grasses, for the first time in that childâ??s life,
...
- 4. Poem With Refrains
The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
...
- 5. Impossible To Tell
to Robert Hass and in memory of Elliot Gilbert
Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
...
- 6. The Refinery
". . . our language, forged in the dark bycenturies of violent
pressure, underground,out of the stuff of dead life."
Thirsty and languorous after their long black sleep
...
- 7. Ode To Meaning
Dire one and desired one,
Savior, sentencer--
In an old allegory you would carry
...
