Spring then too, always, the first
truly balmy times,
Then off in solitary striding into
discoveries, rocks, strange
Plants, stranger sounds, in
solitary satisfaction, being whatever
I would like in the true learning,
as it went on and continued
Spring even now, ancient really, and
suddenly recall its stopping.
You plucked my I from me and
crumpled it and matted it so
That it was heaved inside THEM, plausible, placid and regular.
And so now still then, in times, as
the mind drifts even more and
Takes itself to places it forgot it
knows with a flash so thoughtless it seems
A refreshment, an original, from a
languid time, perhaps, or not, no
Matter, because this drift can become
a mastery, a more than it can seem.
And as the drift wanders on some
rocks and plants and sounds recollect,
Reconsider, even rejoice at the
slightest glimmer, that time that the I had
Its dandiest something else, to
wonder at, to wonder more—
But now
As then
Maybe I was THEM even then, on the meanderings
Among the lilacs, the dank, dirty
banks along the canoeing creek,
Boulders mounting high along the
endlines of the neighborhood,
Scaling support struts and
splinters on outdoor advertisings,
In all that heroism alone I could
not see
That I had been plucked early into
all of it
All my time with all of THEM.
