I turn to look at the birds more and more

As my years follow the years that fall,

And at water, to see it spill and pour.

The wings flow, the water flies, and all

I know by now and all I've done, I'll tell

As easily as a gray gull washes the sky,

Tireless as a piney stony stream pellmell

Down the great contours, not wishing why.

It was a long time ago that I was dammed,

But the weight learns to be its own power.

This flight and flow would go undiagrammed

And unhistorical, except I saved an hour

By thinking it, when the cold water formed,

Urged, and ran away with itself like air,

Like a flat green sheet of wind, and swarmed

High in flood the birds mixed bright and bare.