Discoveries

WE have discovered many things To suit our moods, to give us wings: More than an Aristotle-tome In crimson splash of a fowl’s comb, In silver-boled unleaving trees Like organ-pipes along the breeze; Sometimes the notes run sharp and false When rooks and twigs join in the valse Of smooth and swaying treetop spun Like yarn across the copper sun.... But there are times when you would cry To hear the trees’ low melody. And we have watched the hemlock spray And smelt dank wafture of decay, The fume from tawny bellied leaves In spirals where the autumn grieves. With froth of flowers we have been rich— The globuled frog-spawn on the ditch Was mottled with our wonder; vast Moist moans of raping bees’ repast Have sluiced our languid afternoons Like ripples crawling on lagoons. But we have not discovered yet How to erase, how to forget Sheer vividness of solitude, How to obliterate each mood To dim Antarctic memories, Merged icebergs twinkling in chopped seas.