The bush of thorn be left. The apple trees

Be blown till petals fall and glide so slow

You see bare sparrows shivering to the knees

(The limbs of birds bend in the autumn.) Go

Among the gulleys and the withering hedge,

The plane-trees dying golden to their edge,

And gather to your palm the coin you find.

Then lift it to the polish of the wind.

There, though the glitter blind you, fear no light.

An hour may pass before you lean and hear

Shadows of feet beginning from the height

Above your shoulder. Let your open ear

Cherish out of the air whatever sound

Searches the bushes and the frozen ground;

When she cries downward from the granite cliff,

Look for no comfort from that lonely wife.

Cover your eyes against the daylight. Wait.

Do anything but look—whether you move

Your fingers toward her, whistle to the late

Crickets or toads, or speak aloud your love

For something earthly, something on the path

Give her bone of a swallow or the moth

Or the dark feather of tanager or crow,

But close your eyes. She knows the thing to do.

She has to dance three times around the leaves,

Limping and humming, shaking off the dust

Of rock and root, she needs the cleansing waves

Of air above the earth, she lay so long

Deeper than loud men ever delved in song,

Farther in darkness than the wind believes

Who probed so far to find another ghost:

Deeper and colder than the floors of graves.

Once you behold her eyes, you will be gone

After her, calling, singing nowhere else.

She hears the large veins in the heart of stone

Beating your name, she knows your human face.

Ask her for nothing when she rises then

Wiping the dust away and the year’s rain;

Stand up, perform, under the open sky,

Whatever she demands, before you die.