The Poet at Work

I roller-skate upon the harps of childhood

And birds and stars play hopscotch to my tune.

My deity is gay.

While seedpods of the jewelweed go Bang

And butterflies cry Halt on the highway, I ride

In the belly of a poem which purrs

Like dynamos and prayers.

More luminous than the flight of the egg through space

In sleep, I swim in the dry lakes of the moon

And follow the ants in their odysseys;

more huge

Than silence under the bark of trees, I sit

Unmoving as the ghost of the first verb at the wind's

End,

while small as a tear the world revolves

About the point of my pencil.