Collecte Works (35 page)

Ruby of corundum

lapis lazuli

from changing limestone

glow-apricot red-brown

carnelian sard

Greek named

Exodus-antique

kicked up in America's

Northwest

you have been in my mind

between my toes

agate

Wild Pigeon

Did not man

       maimed by no

             stone-fall

mash the cobalt

       and carnelian

            of that bird

Schoolcraft left the Soo—canoes

US pennants, masts, sails

chanting canoemen, barge

soldiers—for Minnesota

Their South Shore journey

             as if Life's—

The Chocolate River

            The Laughing Fish

and The River of the Dead

Passed peaks of volcanic thrust

Hornblende in massed granite

Wave-cut Cambrian rock

painted by soluble mineral oxides

wave-washed and the rains

did their work and a green

running as from copper

Sea-roaring caverns—

Chippewas threw deermeat

to the savage maws

” Voyageurs
crossed themselves

tossed a twist of tobacco in”

      Inland then

beside the great granite

gneiss and the schists

to the redolent pondy lakes'

lilies, flag and Indian reed

“through which we successfully

                               passed”

The smooth black stone

I picked up in true source park

        the leaf beside it

once was stone

Why should we hurry

       Home

I'm sorry to have missed

       Sand Lake

My dear one tells me

       we did not

We watched a gopher there

My Life by Water

My life

    by water—

         Hear

spring's

    first frog

         or board

out on the cold

    ground

         giving

Muskrats

    gnawing

      doors

to wild green

    arts and letters

      Rabbits

raided

    my lettuce

      One boat

two—

    pointed toward

      my shore

thru birdstart

    wingdrip

      weed-drift

of the soft

    and serious—

      Water

TRACES OF LIVING THINGS

strange feeling of sequence”—S.M.

Museum

Having met the protozoic

    Vorticellae

          here is man

Leafing towards you

    in this dark

          deciduous hall

Far reach

    of sand

          A man

bends to inspect

    a shell

          Himself

part coral

    and mud

          clam

TV

See it explained—

compound interest

and the compound eye

    of the insect

the wave-line

on shell, sand, wall

and forehead of the one

    who speaks

We are what the seas

have made us

longingly immense

the very veery

on the fence