when the moon is high, i wake at midnight and wander.
rivers and trees … and all
over the countryside—
deep is the silence, deep
that goes in and out with me.
i’ve heard it in the chillest land—
do i dare
disturb the universe?
speaking indifferently to him,
i said, “is it good, friend?”
all this was a long time ago, i remember;
i doubted if i should ever come back
to come again at dark.
morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
what we call the beginning is often the end …
begin the song exactly where you are.
A cento after T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Donald Hall, John Drinkwater, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Crane, Robert Hayden, Robert Frost, Malcolm Guite, and e.e. cummings.
