Five Songs on Poems of James Wright

I walked, when love was gone,
Out of the human town, 
For an easy breath of air.
Beyond a break in the trees, 
Beyond the hangdog lives 
Of old men, beyond girls:
The tall stars held their peace.
Looking in vain for lies 
I turned, like earth, to go.
An owl's wings hovered, bare 
On the moon's hills of snow.

And things were as they were.

The trouble with you is 
You think all I want to do Is get into bed
And make love with you.

And that's not true!

I was just trying to make friends.
All I wanted to do Was get into bed 
With you and make

Love with you.

Who was that little bird we saw towering upside down 
This afternoon on that pine cone, on the edge of a cliff, 
In the snow? Wasn't he charming? Yes he was, now,
Now, now,
Just take it easy.

Aha!

It was one evening
In an autumn
When bells hung in a vast
And yet most intricate design
From the webs of araucaria,
Trees that are not trees easily,
The little leaves
That are trees in secret.

Under one bough,
One vein of one leaf,
One side of the sea
Sang for a thousand inches
Uphill, as though
The tree in the leaf in the sea
Were sorry for being human
And wanted to run back
Across a river
In the center of America
Into the arms of an old beard,
Butterfly of ashes,
Architect of spiders
Climbing up the long
Slag heap to gain
The crumbling pinnacle and spin
One strand of his body to join
The earth to one star anyway,
And maybe save it.

The leaves of the little
Secret trees are fallen,
And where the earth goes on spinning
I don't know.

I had no idea the elf owl
Crept into you in the secret
Of night.

I have torn myself out of many bitter places
In America, that seemed

Tall and green-rooted in mid-noon.
I wish I were the spare shadow
Of the roadrunner, I wish I were
The honest lover of the diamondback
And the tear the tarantula weeps.
I had no idea you were so tall
And blond in moonlight.
I got thirsty in the factories,
And I hated the brutal dry suns there,
So I quit.

You were the shadow
Of a hallway
In me.

I have never gone through that door,
But the elf owl's face
Is inside me.

Saguaro,
You are not one of the gods.
Your green arms lower and gather me.
I am an elf owl's shadow, a secret
Member of your family.

Weep, and weep long, but do not weep for me,
Nor, long lamenting, raise, for any word
Of mine that beats above you like a bird,
Your voice, or hand. But shaken clear, and free,
Be the bare maple, bough where nests are made
Snug in the season’s wrinkled cloth of frost;
Be leaf, by hardwood knots, by tendrils crossed
On tendrils, stripped, uncaring; give no shade.

Give winter nothing; hold; and let the flake
Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms.
All flawless hexagons may melt and break;
While you must feel the summer’s rage of fire,
Beyond this frigid season’s empty storms,
Banished to bloom, and bear the birds’ desire.