Exile

These hills are sandy. Trees are dwarfed here. Crows

Caw dismally in skies of an arid brilliance,

Complain in dusty pine-trees. Yellow daybreak

Lights on the long brown slopes a frost-like dew,

Dew as heavy as rain; the rabbit tracks

Show sharply in it, as they might in snow.

But it’s soon gone in the sun — what good does it do?

The houses, on the slope, or among brown trees,

Are grey and shrivelled. And the men who live here

Are small and withered, spider-like, with large eyes.

Bring water with you if you come to live here —

Cold tinkling cisterns, or else wells so deep

That one looks down to Ganges or Himalayas.

Yes, and bring mountains with you, white, moon-bearing,

Mountains of ice. You will have need of these

Profundities and peaks of wet and cold.

Bring also, in a cage of wire or osier,

Birds of a golden colour, who will sing

Of leaves that do not wither, watery fruits

That heavily hang on long melodious boughs

In the blue-silver forests of deep valleys.

I have now been here — how many years? Years unnumbered.

My hands grow clawlike. My eyes are large and starved.

I brought no bird with me, I have no cistern

Where I might find the moon, or river, or snow.

Some day, for lack of these, I’ll spin a web

Between two dusty pine-tree tops, and hang there

Face downward, like a spider, blown as lightly

As ghost of leaf. Crows will caw about me.

Morning and evening I shall drink the dew.