Goose Pond

Goose Pond's imaginable snows,

The fall of twenty years at once,

Like subtler moons reflect the rose

Decompositions of the sun.

A feather tumbling from a cloud

Scrolls thunders of the natural law;

The cat-tails rattle; cinnamon-fern

Raises rag banners towards the thaw,

And early-footed ghost-flowers scour

Through willow-dapplings to a cave

Where secrecy grows fur. Self burns

At the pulpits where Jack-preachers rave!

Now a sulky weather dogs the heart,

There is no bottom to the day,

The water-lily's Chinese stalk

Drags heavy, as the white-lipped boy

Climbs from detritus of his birth,

The rusted hoop, the broken wheels,

The sunken boat of little worth,

Past balconies of limber eels

Until, along that marshy brink,

The springy trails devoid of plan,

He meets his childhood beating back

To find what furies made him man.