Home from Duck Marsh

Home from Duck Marsh

All day in the rain and sour reek

of the marsh, in the fluttering grass of killdeer,

all day I have been speaking

in the tongues of duck-squalling in joy

of smartweed, watershield, salt hay,

as the green fash of mallards rode

in the high winds.

It is evening now, it is weariness.

it is the weight of the body deepening

into pools of rain.

into the clear dark eyes of birds.

Around me the cities are stoking up forthe night, the furnaces singing of death

until the old are stunned with it

and the young, before their banked altars of sound.

hum like wires in the wastes of Kansas.

But it is evening now, it is weariness

The bittern descends for the last time

and the egret closes its whiteness in the tall grass.

And in this quiet house of rain

I am the last sane man on earth

sleep settling on my brow

like a great crown.