Henry David Thoreau (from Walden)

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wishing practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. 

1

Crocodiles are mostly birds.

2

Your hands are full of shell and yolk.

3

Homo heidelbergensis built a home of wood and stone.

4

Blue river channeled into barren meadow sexed me.

5

You ride me roughshod.

6

Seasonally, sexual dimorphism increases the size and saturation of a male thing.

7

How vile—a field of tulips, violet and crimson.

8

I regret everything.

9

Our hairlines recede in tandem like thieves.

10

I crave salt, not sugar; vinegar, not milk.

11

The dog sleeps in a trapezoid of sun.

12

I am remarkably calm.

Oh, to sleep like a cat!

Indolent napping during daylight hours, 

Exhausted by a night’s prowl,

Then a rarified rest.

Eyes half-mast and slow fade 

Until a human invasion 

Invites a touch, a scratch.

Obscene stretching, a shift of position, 

Then napping on.

Oh, to rest a long time!

A poison-spindled slumber with no wake-up call 

A flash of heat, petty fretting

Life or death disquiet, a mate’s mere snore

Toss and turn me long before oblivion will come.

Oh, to be nocturnal like the cat! 

We pass in the night.

She creeps toward her bowl, 

I stumble toward the clock,

Old woman squinting at a luminous dial. 

Vigilant and wary of a siren in the distance 

A dumpster dropped from midnight height

An exchange of vital cautions by the neighborhood dogs. 

How few hours has she rested?

Oh, to sleep like a cat!

On the rosy clouds of the morning

My spirit floated away.

I seemed to share in the dawning 

Of a glorious promised day.

Far above the sound of men’s striving 

Where mothers’ loved sons lie dead

I was again a heartbroken mother 

Approaching the Great Godhead.

I fell on my face before him 

Unstifled my anguished cry, 

“Why, O most powerful Father, 

Why must my darling die?”

The healing breath of the mountains 

Brought solace from my pain.

I drank deeply of Truth’s fountain 

Whose gushing gentle rain 

Cleansed my soul of its anguish

And this was the message that came,

“Thy son hath not died, but he liveth

A life free from sorrow and sin,

And our Father, who all blessings giveth, 

Allows anguish to draw us to him.”