Landscape

There may not be the space to see
Beyond the street on which I stand;
The high-thrown wall envelope me
And block my view at every hand.
My vision then cannot embrace
The distant vista far or wide
I see a cramped and confined space
In which a million visions hide.
There crawls an insect, in whose eyes
The street around me is a plain;
And there above a seagull flies
Until returning to the main
While I look out and up, around
At everything except the ground.

Search

Somewhere around here,  once, I had a wife;
And somewhere else, I think I might recall,
The remnants of a not too awful life:
Perhaps a dog, a house, a job and all.
If I remember rightly (and I might)
I kind of liked it. But then again, who knows?
My memory is comfortable and bright
But as I ponder, my confusion grows.
If she--and they--should be here, where are they?
And if I am the man I think I've been
Why am I stuck as I am this way?
I do not know quite where I should begin.
I look for her, and still I do not see;
Yet I will hope, and think in terms of we.

Trees And Wood

God is not alone in ornate halls,
Nor worshipped best in silk and cloth-of-gold;
We find God sometimes hidden in the walls
Of subway tracks, through use grown cracked and old
Or in the grass that somehow breaks to light
Out of the concrete sidewalk when it cracks
A sudden unexpected well-known sight
Whose wonder from its common presence lacks
The splendor of a dias set in jewels,
But shows the strength of life, and thus of God.
Oh, I am sure I am one of the fools
Who see the splendor and think it not odd
To worship in the beauty that's manmade
Though I should find it finer in the shade.