155
xii
Study of Wild Oats #2: The Fisherman
It is something unhuman in us,
doubtless (serene,
Though, for what it's worth)
which now has that fi gure
Pausing a moment, as if interrupted,
on a stony rise, to see beside him
A stand of the slender
wild oats bending
A little stiffl
y, shivering,
each long, smooth, hollow
Pale stem fi lled to the top with late sunlight,
the husks even brighter, swinging
Under their spikelets, ablaze, in shape like
narrow fi ne-pointed lance-heads,
Or, sprung open, bird-bills held wide to call --
and the creek below them
Splitting to pass between boulders,
roaring and misting,
The mist carrying away rapidly
on the up-canyon breezes,
Over the boulders the cold shadows of alders
beautifully sidling.