I Am Youth

I reached back

To that floatsome time

Before life had wrung the joy from me

And mangled me, leaving me old.

Spring laughed in October--

Then I knew:

I am my own touchstone; I am youth.

I lifted my head

And hurled a challenge--

The moon and stars hearing

Danced down to the lake

And bathed in its beauty.

I, myself, looked in its mystic mirror:

I saw no lines of age--

Youth looked back at me from my eyes

And my lips were tremulous with June.

With Circling Wings

Dark echelons of wild geese race the wind.
In answer to a mute yet urgent call
They seek a warmer marshland, disciplined
By more than earth. Unerringly in fall,
Germ-knowledged, they rise lazily and climb
In ever widening circles till they reach
The fringe of Heaven; then in pantomime
They form in place--no need for sound or speech.
Give me their pinioned faith, an anadem
Of clouds and stars. A far horizon's height
Is beckoning with circling wings. With them
I spiral upward, know the feel of flight.
How fragile are the chains of earth when I
See wild geese rising, touch October sky.