Have I not written of birds? And if I had, who'd care?

I am afraid as I am of music, of how, questioning air,

Birds run in rivers outside themselves, and swing away.

If I were like any of that, how and whatever to say

Coming down again, to of course again, the unimaginary?

Music I find no words for. There are none to say that hurry,

That actual, that private map-following going on under

Gales of everything I never knew. I have watched wander

A stem's length, newcomer, hummingbird at my windowsill.

he hung there, My silence, clumsy as a mountain wall,

Could not have seemed even huge, if I was nothing

Complete there as I wished, front to that millioning

Green hunt for sweet in the ordinary third-floor flowers.

I was a moment or two, his speed a lifetime of hours.

Music to me is this too much. I listen and cannot listen,

Not long. Come back to my animal, I hear and see hasten

Time-measuring roof-slant, infinitely parallel curbstone,

Voice and voice in interview, and the calendar is undone,

Thermometer reads August when newspaper says January,

My gold vest-watch races back five four three two unbury

My father who wore it first.

I'll write about sea-gulls,

Sea-gray and sloping in airs of my slow mind. Their sails

Carry me up round and down, old windmill canvas on a cliff,

Their creaking cry wing to my wing, my noise enough.