by James Dickey
Once you have let the first blade Spring back behind you To the way it has always been, You no longer know where you are. All you can see are the tall Stalks of sawgrass, not sawing, But each of them holding its tip Exactly at the level where your hair Begins to grow from your forehead. Wherever you come to is The same as before, With the same blades of oversized grass, And wherever you stop, the one Blade just in front of you leans, That one only, and touches you At the place where your hair begins To grow; at that predestined touch Your spine tingles crystally, like salt, And the image of the crane occurs, Each flap of its wings creating Its feathers anew, this time whiter, As the sun destroys all points Of the compass, refusing to move From its chosen noon. Where is the place you have come from With your buried steps full of new roots? You cannot leap up to look out, Yet you do not sink, But seem to grow, and the sound, The oldest of sounds, is your breath Sighing like acres. If you stand as you are for long, Green panic may finally give Way to another sensation, For when the embodying wind Rises, the grasses begin to weave A little, then all together, Not bending enough for you To see your way clear of the swaying, But moving just the same, And nothing prevents your bending with them, helping their wave Upon wave upon wave upon wave By not opposing, By willing your supple inclusion Among fields without promise of harvest, In their marvelous, spiritual walking Everywhere, anywhere.