SUNKEN FOREST

Where the water ran

there is now nothing. Shadow of leaf and stone

drown in that darkness; are equal shadow

where the bright scattered sun

fails at the water’s surface, and the spell

is not cast. On the reeded shores

gray skeletons collapse to the still water,

the bones of trees entangled; out farther,

like broken pikes, the tops of dead pines

totter and ruin in the unseen wind.

The odor is

of patience

Of sleep. This is a map

of sleep. The spell

not cast. An old man, an old house filled with rooms,

most in darkness. Tomorrow the same.