Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea—fish. I cover you with my net. What are you —banded one?

YOU are as gold as the half—ripe grain that merges to gold again, as white as the white rain that beats through

Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down

Weed, moss—weed, root tangled in sand, sea—iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken,

O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind

White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,

Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye—balls and my eyes w…

The light passes from ridge to ridge, from flower to flower— the hepaticas, wide—spread under the light

The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,

Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain, treasure