44. Horse Fiddle

FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind.

Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on his soft wire legs learning to stand up and preach, Jack-in-the-pulpit.

As many poems as I have written to the moon and the streaming of the moon spinners of light, so many of the summer moon and the winter moon I would like to shoot along to your ears for nothing, for a laugh, a song,

for nothing at all,

for one look from you,

for your face turned away

and your voice in one clutch

half way between a tree wind moan

and a night-bird sob.

Believe nothing of it all, pay me nothing, open your window for the other singers and keep it shut for me.

The road I am on is a long road and I can go hungry again like I have gone hungry before.

What else have I done nearly all my life than go hungry and go on singing?

Leave me with the hoot owl.

I have slept in a blanket listening.

He learned it, he must have learned it

From two moons, the summer moon,

And the winter moon

And the streaming of the moon spinners of light.

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