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short walk alone
Cool air just arriving; half moon
High, keen-edged.
Air still and town still,
Lights on the mountain shine
As through punctures in the blackness,
Shapes like tiny explosions.
High, high in the eucalyptus --
Black bough tips in a black
Star-mild -- a nighthawk cries out,
Twice, a gravelly scream,
That it's his darkness.
Coming back, catch a fragrance like cloves,
From some fl owering bush or tree,
Near where the hawk claimed the dark.
Merely walking here seems
A kind of right spending
Of good, built up by the nature
Of things, by the race, by myself,
Brought within reach by the hang
Of the world as it has come
Quietly round, just here, just now.
a day in the back country
i
Strong cold gusts rake the ridge;
I drive into the east light;
The roadside wild oats shake,
Glisten delicately
-- Silver for a girl's wrist.