1
What more than sky, a pinioned soul
On the rack of eternity, sweet alien mother?
I hear Walt Whitman -
I believe my face and the sky's are his,
And every part of everything effuses the whole
Of a poetic force that is - it is!
The scud and force and jag of him,
The white wake and churning heat - his compressing
     hand -
The gentleness nor male nor female;
I touch tips of the white grass
Of his flowing beard - Uncle Walt,
Prophet of serenity, most welcome now as ever.

          2
Delicate, my morning fog, my brown shell curving
From the touch of finger-painted clouds like pink daffodils,
Soon rubbed off the blue grass as if by scruffing dogs,
Replaced by gaps loud as cities, tumultuous blue
     space
Bawling, caterwauling such that one sees,
One understands, a necessity of magpies.

          3
Great, active world, spilling out its molten life
In innumerable forms, ghostly molds that make us; Always, a backward glance before the forward step.
The clouds do not speak but to negate themselves.
Perhaps they were artists once but, jilted, lapsed into      critique.
Or is their melting final affirmation