For Edwin Wilson

Did wind and wave design the albatross's wing,

honed compliances: or is it effrontery to

suggest that the wing designed the gales and

seas: are we guests here, then, with all the

gratitude and soft-walking of the guest:

provisions and endurances of riverbeds,

mountain shoulders, windings through of tulip

poplar, grass, and sweet-frosted foxgrape:

are we to come into these and leave them as

they are: are the rivers in us, and the slopes,

ours that the world's imitate, or are we

mirrorments merely of a high designing aloof

and generous as a host to us: what would

become of us if we declined and staked out

a level affirmation of our own: we wind

the brook into our settlement and husband the

wind to our sails and blades: what is to

be grateful when let alone to itself, as for

a holiday in naturalness: the albatross, ah,

fishes the waves with a will beyond the

waves' will, and we, to our own doings, put

down the rising of sea or mountain slope: except

we do not finally put it down: still, till

the host appears, we'll make the masters here.