Program: Arranged

Night lights from sky and shore

fleck the oars. The prow dips in the waves.

Across the bay, distantly, windows of

home, faith, civilization, and the many virtues

crowd the landing, reflected in the stream

like stars, dehumanized.

The bay, crossed,

shakes loose, and the image breaks;

the oars as wings recover in the dark

a heart and voice, that now

the muffled bird may reawake its call

to forest blood, repeating in the night

the words of love and loneliness it knows.

And you, forever absent from this coast, may be

a citizen of lights, on fertile plains '

blessed by the donor Venus, naked to her hand:

or, in the world of cities, brow-beat sycophant,

may coin men's hearts with begging in the street.

I cannot envy or condemn or change.

The program is arranged.

Still, the black bay by the wharf invites

rebellion against broods fed in the home-light;

and here, as the frogs croak by the lumber mill,

I sit and court the winds and say your name.