It was the custom of my tribe to be silent, to think the song inwardly, tune and word so beautiful they could be only held, not sung; held and heard in quietness while walking the end of the field where birches make a grove, or standing by the rail in back of the library in some northern city, or in the long dream of a tower of gothic stoniness; and always we were alone. Yet sometimes two heard it, two separately together. It could come nearby in the shadow of a pine bough on the snow, or high in the orchestral lights, or maybe (this was our miracle) it would have no intermediary -- a suddenness, indivisible, unvoiced. 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...CONTRA MORTEM: THE FALL by HAYDEN CARRUTH WHEN I WROTE A LITTLE by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE SACHEM OF THE CLOUDS (A THANKSGIVING LEGEND) by ROBERT FROST EVENTIDE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON MADMAN OF THE SOUTH SIDE by CLARENCE MAJOR THE PAST IS THE PRESENT (2) by MARIANNE MOORE THE WIZARD IN WORDS by MARIANNE MOORE |