Returned to the Yaak Cabin, I Overhear an Old Greek Song

Back at the west window, Basin Creek

Stumbling its mantra out in a slurred, mid-summer

monotone,

Sunshine in planes and clean sheets

Over the yarrow and lodgepole pine-

We spend our whole lives in the same place and

never leave,

Pine squirrels and butterflies at work in a deep dither,

Bumblebee likewise, wind with a slight hitch in its

get-along.

Dead heads on the lilac bush, daisies

Long-legged forest of stalks in a white throw across

the field

Above the ford and deer path,

Candor of marble, candor of bone-

We spend our whole lives in the same place and

never leave,

The head of Orpheus bobbing in the slatch, his song

Still beckoning from his still-bloody lips, bright as a

bee's heart.

Structure

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