I
But the little more: the little more
This boy will be, is hard
For me to talk of
But harder for him. Manhood is only a little more,
A little more time, a little more everything than he
Has on him now. He would know, if he could go forward
From where he puts down his ball,
His top, his willow spear,
that he will face into the air
Where the others his age will be breaking, or be
About to break,
and he will watch them grow pale
With the warnings of doctors,
And all their balloons, and parents and the other
Dead will be floating
Away from them, over the mountains.
I would tell him
This is where the quiet
Valley comes in, and the red creek
Where he will row with no other,
The water around each blade
Explosive, ablaze with his only initials,
Joy set in the bending void
Between the oars
and swung,
As the last balloon disappears, needing
Color no more. Yes! This is when the far mountain
Will come to him, under his feet
Of its own wish
when he steps up
From water, and in the wind he will start
To hear the enormous resonance
Children cannot make out: of his own gigantic
Continuous stride over all ferocious rocks
That can be known.
II
From the ones who have grown all they can
Come and stop softly, boy,
On the strong side of the road
That the other side does not see. Then move.
Put your feet where you look,
and not
Where you look, and none of your tracks
Will pass off, but wander, and for you
Be fresh places, free and aggressive.
Boy who will always be glanced-at
and then fixed
In warm gazes, already the past knows
It cannot invent you again,
For the glitter on top of the current
Is not the current.
No, but what dances on it is
More beautiful than what takes its time
Beneath, running on a single unreleased
Eternal breath, rammed
With carry, its all-out dream and dread
Surging bull-breasted,
Head-down, unblocked.
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