We are approaching sleep: the chestnut blossoms in the mind

Mingle with thoughts of pain

And the long roots of barley, bitterness

As of the oak roots staining the waters dark

In Louisiana, the wet streets soaked with rain

And sodden blossoms; out of this

We have come, a tunnel softly hurtling into darkness.

The storm is coming. The small farmhouse in Minnesota

Is hardly strong enough for the wind.

Darkness, darkness in grass, darkness in trees.

Even the water in wells trembles.

Bodies give off darkness, and chrysanthemums

Are dark, and horses, who are bearing great loads of hay

To the deep barns where the dark air is moving from corners.

Lincoln’s statue, and the traffic. From the long past

Into the long present

A bird, forgotten in these troubles, warbling,

As the great wheel turns around, grinding

The living in water.

Washing, continual washing, in water now stained

With blossoms and rotting logs,

Cries, half-muffled, from beneath the earth, the living awakened

at last like the dead.