"A World without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness"

The tall camels of the spirit

Steer for their deserts, passing the last groves loud

With the sawmill shrill of the locust, to the whole honey of the arid

Sun. They are slow, proud,

And move with a stilted stride

To the land of the sheer horizon, hunting Traherne's

Sensible emptiness, there where the brain's lantern-slide

Revels in vast returns.

O connoisseurs of thirst,

Beasts of my soul who long to learn to drink

Of pure mirage, those prosperous islands are accurst

That shimmer on the brink

Of absence; auras, lustres,

And all the shinings need to be shaped and borne.

Think of those painted saints, capped by the early masters

With bright, jauntily-worn

Aureate plates, or even

Merry-go-round rings. Turn, O turn

From the fine sleights of the sand, from the long empty oven

Where flames in flamings burn

Back to the trees arrayed

In bursts of glare, to the halo-dialing run

Of the country creeks, and the hills' bracken tiaras made

Gold in the sunken sun,

Wisely watch for the sight

Of the supernova burgeoning over the barn,

Lampshine blurred in the steam of beasts, the spirit's right

Oasis, light incarnate.

-- Richard Wilbur

Patience

What is the good life now? Why,

look here, consider

the moon's white crescent

rounding, slowly, over
the half month to still another
perfect circle --

the shining eye
that lightens the hills
that lays down the shadows

of the branches of the trees
that summons the flowers
to open their sleepy faces and look up

into the heavens.
I used to hurry everywhere
and leaped the running creeks.

There wasn't
time enough for all the wonderful things
I could think of to do

in a single day. Patience
comes to the bones
before it takes root in the heart

as another good idea.
I say this
as I stand in the woods

and study the patterns
of the moon shadows,
or stroll down to the waters

that now, late summer, have also
caught the fever, and hardly move
from one eternity to another.


-- Mary Oliver