"The Bear" (Excerpt)
"In late winter
I sometimes glimpse bits of steam
coming up
some fault in the old snow
and bend close and see it is lung-colored
and put down my nose
and know
the chilly, enduring odor of bear."
"Lilacs" (Excerpt)
"The sweet wind climbed with a laggard pace
Up the green hill, but meeting the sun there
Disappeared like a piece of warm wax
Into the ground. Down on the south slope
A bitch stretched, and swaths of fierce lilacs
Opened astonishing furnaces of scent."
"Alewives Pool" (Excerpt)
"We layed on the grass and gazed down and heard
The world burning on the pulse of April,
And were so shook and stirred, and cut, we wondered
What can the heart forget and what recall?
We rose to remember and flew like birds,
And flew down the path to the Alewive's Pool
Where herring dripping with lust from the seas
Came flocking up until the pond would spill;
And fell amazed - how they memorize
Love's never-studied maps and ritual..."
- Galway Kinnell
