I’d just as soon be a skull, among elements that love
my elements, as teach the thick-skinned and the faint to
seize
life. They should teach me. Everything out of doors knows
what’s good for it, a wordless book on how and when
to eat and what to sniff at. All compete to bathe,
dive, hover over, splash each other
and grow so clean they drink what made some other
species clean. In troops of six the yellow warblers love
to ambush puffy robins who increase as they bathe,
roughing themselves up. The warblers seize
a spot over robins’ heads and beat as when
a flag proclaims an untenable mountain. Who knows
how a lightweight, free from human scales, knows
he’s frightening? If I’m for the small, in other
words, neglectable, and I know something big when
I see it, Pll go a little further. Even say I love
what complicates, compensates for me, can seize
the imagination, overturn the waters with oxygen, bathe
us in historical light. What makes so many bathe
at once—hour, air, cocked eye of the light? One knows
and all the others know. Brown, spotted, bright, they seize
the muddy ground around the pool. Each from the other
wants the chance that comes to all—to love
himself with coolness, shallow water, and get out when
clean. A gorgeous blue obstacle, the jay comes just when
the least are taking turns. They will bathe
him with insults he, the grossest cheat, must love
or not be himself without their jeers, envy, and (one knows)
very real longing. It’s a day like other
days, peace levels in me like water, and other lives seize
that very slack to trouble. Get hold of yourself!—seize
the difference between these angels and your friends; when
you’ve matched them, let them love one another.
That unifies the world. Then wash your hands; bathe;
steam; know what every species knows
that tries, at least once in a while, to love.
Now it is the other half of day. Who’ll bathe
at night, join (not seize) the small lonely pool when
no one else knows? Will we sleep through its love?
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