From a California Valley

I

Day swallows day. How often has the mountain's

Shadow cooled this valley, dew fallen,

Dew dried on the rock?

Foliage

Darkens, droops; and moss turns yellow

On sun-smitten logs. Now clover

Browns and the wild aster's

Stars burn in the dry grass.

Here is peace. Each day repeats

Peace

While hawks hover.

Weave the word as a cloak about you,

Rapt at poolside, while the hawk plunges.

Hold the word as a shield against the lark's

Terror, the hawk's undarkened joy.

The shadow of the fringed wings

Will go from the pool, the serene crystal

Be restored. (The gaze must not waver.)

Remember: the hawk has not eaten

The bitter fruit of an old bitter tree;

The spider has not sucked that fruit, she is innocent,

Binding the ringed wasp with gossamer.

The pool will clear, crossed shadow

And bird-death fade from the crystal.

What if fear armors the slow tortoise,

Fleets the hare, is engraved

In robin-wing, spelled in the boar's tusk?

Their eyes are undarkened. No wild heart

Beats to fear's drum as a man's heart.

Look in the pool... (Why does the gaze waver,

Turn away, sadden, lift to the hill-crag?)

u

Should a tower firm as a rock-rooted pine

Be shaken by a wind of crying

From lost men, a house built well and warm

Turn bleak because the houseless roam

Bleak-eyed outside? Should the pool's

Crystal be shattered when a shadow passes,

Whether of plunging hawk or of men

Warring to the death?

Wise men,

Troubling pictures move in the deeps

Of the water-lily pool; hoarse voices

Make a jeering wind in the tower; hands

Pluck at the locks, rattle, batter the doors.

What is the answer, wise men, what shall I tell them -

The lost, the hungry, the unhoused

Of body and spirit? Shall I echo your teachings,

Say to the dispossessed: Build the heart's house

Of courage . . . build the spirit's house... ?

Wise men,

There is a jeering wind in the tower.

tL

Stone upon stone loosens

In clouds of dust, and falls.

The quaking ground receives them.

Mortar in the old walls

Crumbles, and the shivered tower

Leans to earth at last

As a rotten oak goes over

In a small wind; and its sides kiss the grass.