Bell Mare in the Hills

THE bell about the bell mare’s throat
Lets drop its brazen note on note,
And riffles on the silence run
To oceans of oblivion.
I see one star, lost in the night;
The aspens hush and huddle tight
Against the weight of years and space
That weigh upon this camping place.

A man doubts that he’s real, in bed
Outside where miles climb overhead
And silence sings of other men
Who wondered here and won’t again.
What makes a man? What holds him in?
What makes him say: Now here is sin,
There virtue: Lord, let me be strong . . . ?
The ages smile at right and wrong.
The world apart from men leaves me
Like Adam or the last man free
To fast or wanton, work or mope,
To follow saint or lycanthrope.

The clapper counts the horse’s strides;
The silence ripples and subsides.

At least my talents, weak or strong,
To all the universe belong;
The grandeur felt, the felt design
As much as other men’s are mine.
The star dims and the aspens brood,
Subdued like me by solitude,
Each part made orphan by the all.
The dark-arched mountains are a wall
To rim awareness to a glow
Against a night not mine to know.

The bell lets drip its drop of sound;
The riffles run their fretful round,
And farther, fainter, somewhere blend
With oceans where all voices end.