Thirty yards apart, they face not each other but both in the same direction, and yet could not be more together, these sandhill cranes near Ruby Lake, Nevada, two russet paleographic curves, slender Chinese brushstrokes among tan reeds -- the composed and oriental splendor of this world. Bo, my son, you grow as this grows rarer. We know what the cranes are facing. Already I am a collector of such precious fragments and you will become perhaps a connoisseur, driven in love and wonder to pedantry. Turn away, dear Bo. Love will not keep in such a dwindled order too tenuous to know. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOONLIT APPLES by JOHN DRINKWATER A NEGRO LOVE SONG by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE INDIAN WEED by RALPH ERSKINE E TENEBRIS [FROM THE SHADOWS] by OSCAR WILDE TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE; SIX YEARS OLD by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 3. TO A FRIEND UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE by MARK AKENSIDE |