New Collected Poems Read online

Dark with Power 76

  Dark with power, we remain 76

  David Jones 376

  Dear Ed, 369

  Dear Ernie, 373

  Dear Hayden, 372

  Dear Hayden, when I read your book I was aching 331

  Dear John, 371

  Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath 190

  Deep in the back ways of my mind I see them 61

  Design of the House: Ideal and Hard Time, The 33

  Desolation 281

  Did I believe I had a clear mind? 166

  Discipline, A 110

  Do Not Be Ashamed 82

  Do not think me gentle 248

  Don’t think of it. 187

  Dream, The 72

  Duality 328

  Dust 345

  Earth and Fire 141

  Elegy 3

  Enriching the Earth 125

  Envoy 111

  Epitaph 341

  Even in a country you know by heart 252

  Even love must pass through loneliness, 286

  Except 251

  Except in idea, perfection is as wild 33

  Fall 247

  Falling Asleep 232

  Familiar, The 118

  Farmer Among the Tombs, The 118

  Farmer and the Sea, The 140

  Farmer, Speaking of Monuments, The 159

  Fear of Darkness, The 25

  Fear of Love, The 234

  February 2, 1968 122

  Finches, The 69

  First, The 250

  Flying at night, above the clouds, all earthmarks spurned, 240

  For an Absence 333

  For parents, the only way 244

  For the Explainers 307

  For the Future 252

  For the Hog Killing 230

  For the Rebuilding of a House 119

  For whatever is let go 24

  Forgive me, my delight, 290

  Forsaking all others, we 300

  Forty Years 238

  From many hard workdays in the fields, 312

  From my wife and my households and fields 131

  From the Crest 220

  From the Distance 287

  From the porch at dusk I watched 71

  From the union of power and money, 326

  Gathering, The 188

  Gift of Gravity, The 295

  Give It Time 374

  Goods 231

  Grace 79

  Grandmother, The 156

  Green and White 12

  Grief 246

  Growing weather; enough rain; 151

  Guest, The 27

  Handing Down, The 40

  Having begun in public anonymity 356

  Having danced until nearly 277

  Having lived long in time, 341

  Having once put his hand into the ground, 136

  He comes along the street, singing 22

  Head like a big 358

  Her fate seizes her and brings her 170

  Her First Calf 170

  Heron, The 157

  Hidden Singer, The 241

  His enemy, the universe, surrounds him nightly with stars 18

  His memories lived in the place 129

  History 201

  Homecoming, A 189

  Horseback on Sunday morning, 180

  Horses 262

  How exactly good it is 65

  How fine to have a radio 350

  How hard it is for me, who live 81

  How joyful to be together, alone 315

  How much poison are you willing 375

  How to Be a Poet 354

  However just and anxious I have been, 133

  Hunting them a man must sweat, bear 237

  I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my 139

  I am oppressed by all the room taken up by the dead, 118

  I began to be followed by a voice saying: 134

  I came out to the barn lot 231

  I come to it again 236

  I come to the fear of love 234

  I dream an inescapable dream 72

  I dream of you walking at night along the streams 167

  I dreamed of my father when he was old. 342

  I employ the blind mandolin player 21

  I go in under foliage 303

  I have been spared another day 111

  I have taken in the light 169

  I knew her when I saw her 316

  I leave behind even 368

  I love to lie down weary 120

  I made an opening 186

  I never have denied 320

  I owned a slope full of stones. 116

  I part the out thrusting branches 237

  I see you down there, white-haired 346

  I stood and heard the steps of the city 297

  I tell my love in rhyme 194

  I think of us lying asleep, 28

  I think therefore 357

  I was home alone. He came 334

  I was walking in a dark valley 289

  I was your rebellious son, 319

  I will wait here in the fields 229

  I would have each couple turn, 299

  If you imagine 347

  Imagination 332

  In a Country Once Forested 345

  In a country without saints or shrines 119

  In a dream I go 349

  In a dream I meet 238

  In a Motel Parking Lot, Thinking of Dr. Williams 317

  In a time that breaks 80

  In Art Rowanberry’s barn, where Art’s death 351

  In Art Rowanberry’s Barn 351

  In Extremis: Poems about My Father 334

  In ignorance of the source, our want 286

  In January cold, the year’s short light, 308

  In Memory: Stuart Egnal 77

  In my line of paperwork 247

  In Rain 303

  In the April rain I climbed up to drink 154

  In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, 122

  In the dusk of the river, the wind 70

  In the empty lot —a place 23

  In the evening there were flocks of nighthawks 158

  In the great circle, dancing in 301

  In the mating of trees, 179

  In the place that is my own place, whose earth 73

  In the stilled place that once was a road going down 117

  In the town’s graveyard the oldest plot now frees itself 74

  In this woman the earth speaks. 141

  In This World 128

  Independence Day 132

  Inlet, The 349

  It is a day of the earth’s renewing without any man’s doings or 120

  It is called moneywort 363

  It is no longer necessary to sleep 13

  “. . . it is not too soon to provide by every 177

  It is presumptuous and irresponsible to pray for other people. A 148

  It’s the immemorial feeling 231

  Jason Needly found his father, old Ab, at work 380

  July, 1773 253

  June Wind 347

  Kentucky River Junction 171

  Late in the night I pay 147

  Law That Marries All Things, The 284

  Leader, The 358

  Let him escape hospital and doctor, 55

  Let me be plain with you, dear reader. 359

  Let them stand still for the bullet, and stare the shooter in the 230

  Let Us Pledge 322

  Let us pledge allegiance to the flag, 322

  Letter 288

  Letter (to Ed McClanahan), A 369

  Letter (to Ernest J. Gaines), A 373

  Letter (to Hayden Carruth), A 372

  Letter (to my brother), A 371

  Life is your privilege, not your belonging. 238

  Light and wind are running 347

  Like a room, the clear stanza 19

  Like a tide it comes in, 175

  Like Snow 367

  Lilies, The 132

  Listen! 350

  Long Hunter, The 196


  Look It Over 368

  Love the quick profit, the annual raise, 173

  Love, all day there has been at the edge of my mind 111

  Lover’s Song, A 323

  Lysimachia Nummularia 363

  Mad Farmer in the City, The 142

  Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment, The 177

  Mad Farmer Revolution, The 137

  Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union, The 326

  Mad Farmer’s Love Song, The 189

  Make a place to sit down. 354

  Man Born to Farming, The 115

  Man Walking and Singing, A 13

  Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front 173

  March 22, 1968 123

  March Snow 68

  Marriage 81

  Marriage Song, A 308

  Marriage, an Elegy, A 175

  May Song 24

  Meadow, The 74

  Meditation in the Spring Rain 154

  Meeting, A 238

  Men Untrained to Comfort 380

  Millennium, The 347

  Morning’s News, The 124

  Music, A 21

  Must another poor body, brought 313

  My gentle hill, I rest 291

  My Great-Grandfather’s Slaves 61

  My old friend tells us how the country changed: 310

  My old friend, the owner 26

  Necessity of Faith, The 242

  New Roof, The 128

  Noguchi Fountain 332

  Nothing is simple, 251

  Now constantly there is sound, 63

  Now that you have gone 251

  Now the old ways that have brought us 183

  Observance 6

  October 10 63

  Old Elm Tree by the River, The 165

  On a Theme of Chaucer 320

  On the Hill Late at Night 129

  On the housetop, the floor of the boundless 128

  On the Theory of the Big Bang as the Origin of the Universe 367

  Once there was a man who filmed his vacation. 323

  One faith is bondage. Two 189

  One of Us 313

  Ongoing Holy War Against Evil, The 358

  O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken, 242

  Our Children, Coming of Age 301

  Over the Edge 381

  O when the world’s at peace 189

  Paradise might have appeared here, 17

  Parting, A 312

  Passed through the dark wall, 196

  Passing the Strait 300

  Passing Thought, A 357

  Peace of Wild Things, The 79

  Plan, The 26

  Planting Crocuses 186

  Planting Trees 179

  Planting trees early in the spring, 252

  Poem 166

  Poem for J. 195

  Poem of Thanks, A 111

  Porch over the River, The 70

  Praise 129

  Praise, A 129

  Prayer after Eating 169

  Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer 148

  Purification, A 233

  Questionnaire 375

  Rain 120

  Raindrops on the tin roof. 232

  Reassurer, The 321

  Recognition, The 185

  Record, The 310

  Rejected Husband, The 348

  Requiem 267

  Returning 289

  Ripening 243

  Rising 277

  River Bridged and Forgot, The 292

  Satisfactions of the Mad Farmer, The 151

  Seeds, The 130

  September 2, 1969 158

  Setting Out 286

  Seventeen seventy one 253

  Seventeen Years 235

  Seventy Years 357

  Shrugging in the flight of its leaves, 165

  Silence, The 127

  Sits level, 332

  Sleep 120

  Slip, The 261

  Snake, The 64

  Some Further Words 359

  Somehow it has all 176

  Sometimes hidden from me 314

  Song 194

  Song (1) 286

  Song (2) 291

  Song (3) 297

  Song (4) 302

  Song in a Year of Catastrophe 134

  Song Sparrow Singing in the Fall, A 176

  Sorrel Filly, The 160

  Sowing 117

  Sparrow 20

  Speech to the Garden Club of America, A 377

  Spell the spiel of cause and effect, 307

  Spring 332

  Springs, The 119

  Standing Ground, A 133

  Star, The 240

  Stay Home 229

  Stone 346

  Stones, The 116

  Stop the killing, or 358

  Storm, The 333

  Strait, The 282

  Supplanting, The 117

  Suppose we did our work 367

  Sycamore, The 73

  Terrors are to come. The earth 66

  Testament 190

  Thank you. I’m glad to know we’re friends, of course; 377

  The cloud is free only 284

  The crops were made, the leaves 201

  The dogs of indecision 193

  The dust motes float 345

  The ears stung with cold 69

  The field mouse flickers 204

  The first man who whistled 250

  The first mosquito: 376

  The fowls speak and sing, settling for the night. 122

  The god of the river leans 6

  The gods are less 241

  The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, 115

  The hand is risen from the earth, 118

  The hill pasture, an open place among the trees, 128

  The hook of adrenaline shoves 182

  The land is an ark, full of things waiting. 126

  The leveling of the water, its increase 67

  The longer we are together 243

  The mad farmer, the thirsty one, 137

  The mind is the continuity 40

  The morning comes. The old woman, a spot 246

  The morning lights 68

  The opening out and out, 29

  The poem is important, but 317

  The ripe grassheads bend in the starlight 129

  The river is of the earth 374

  The river takes the land, and leaves nothing. 261

  The rugs were rolled back to the wall 353

  The sea is always arriving, 140

  The seeds begin as abstract as their species, 130

  The songs of small birds fade away 160

  The stepping-stones, once 234

  The tall marigolds darken. 25

  The valley holds its shadow. 282

  The wild cherries ripen, black and fat, 247

  The wind scruffing it, the bay 12

  The woods is shining this morning 79

  The young woodland remembers 345

  They 346

  They are here again, 235

  They lived long, and were faithful 175

  They were into the lambing, up late. 143

  Thief, The 28

  Thirty More Years 314

  This is a story handed down. 249

  This man, proud and young, 325

  Though the air is full of singing 181

  Thought of Something Else, The 59

  Three Elegiac Poems 55

  Three, The 331

  Through elm, buckeye, thorn, 209

  Through the weeks of deep snow 239

  Throwing Away the Mail 251

  To a Siberian Woodsman 107

  To a Writer of Reputation 356

  To be at home on its native ground 269

  To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass 125

  To Gary Snyder 230

  To Go by Singing 22

  To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. 121

  To Hayden Garruth 331

  To Know the Dark 121

  To know the in
habiting reasons 119

  To love is to suffer –did I 328

  To moralize a state, they drag out a man 124

  To My Children, Fearing for Them 66

  To My Mother 319

  To search for what belongs where it is, 288

  To Tanya at Christmas 290

  To Tanya on My Sixtieth Birthday 346

  To tell a girl you loved her—my God!— 381

  To the Holy Spirit 242

  To the Unseeable Animal 161

  To Think of the Life of a Man 80

  To What Listens 236

  Traveling at Home 252

  True harvests no mere intent may reap 242

  Tu Fu 376

  Turn toward the holocaust, it approaches 110

  Until I have appeased the itch 309

  Vacation, The 323

  Venus of Botticelli, The 316

  Voices Late at Night 309

  Walking on the River Ice 251

  Want of Peace, The 78

  Warning to My Readers, A 248

  Washed into the doorway 27

  Way of Pain, The 244

  We are others and the earth, 287

  We lay in our bed as in a tomb 333

  We Who Prayed and Wept 245

  We who prayed and wept 245

  We will see no more 267

  Well, anyhow, I am 357

  Wet Time, A 126

  What banged? 367

  What death means is not this—19

  What is one to make of a life given 355

  What must a man do to be at home in the world? 127

  What she made in her body is broken. 195

  What we have been becomes 197

  What we leave behind to sleep 220

  What wonder have you done to me? 346

  What year 347

  Wheel, The 298

  When despair for the world grows in me 79

  When he goes out in the morning 16

  When I cannot be with you 333

  When I was a boy here, 262

  When I was a young man, 314

  When I was young and lately wed 323

  Where 204

  Where the road came, no longer bearing men, 117

  While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and BigBangists at the Local Provincial Research University, the Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row 379

  While the summer’s growth kept me 157

  Why 348

  Why all the embarassment 348

  Wild Geese, The 180

  Wild Rose, The 314

  Wild, The 23

  Willing to die, 166

  Window Poems 83

  Window. Window. 83

  Winter Night Poem for Mary 121

  Winter Nightfall 122

  Winter Rain, The 67

  Wish to Be Generous, The 130

  Within the circles of our lives 302

  Woods 237

  Words 355

  Work Song 217

  You lean at ease in your warm house at night after supper, 107

  You put on my clothes 185

  You will be walking some night 82

  On the pages whose numbers are given below

  the page end coincides with a stanza break:

  4

  151

  10

  152