January: Year-day 26

           
                                           
                                         
January: Year-day 26

Yesterday, heavy snow, to bring us wonder,
seeds that will blossom into water, and--
words you may think ought to tear me asunder
who lives not by logic but sleights of hand.

Yet, though I'm no Whitman, seeing the best,
nor a Jeffers from his Tor, seeing the worst,
but an Englanded Salchert, of cooled zest,
for both fine reason and magic I thirst.

If apples fatten against me, and birds
tremble my confidence, the game of math
at its rough frontiers makes my nerve-ends dance;
and the game of myth unbuttons me.  Path,
trail, highway, street, certainty, and chance:
synthesis,the direction of/ my words.

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