“Take it, take it,” to an ocean I beseech
A phial of hungry glass
“To some distant beach”
Holding within it
All the air from my lungs,
Every heart beat,
Baby teeth and hair
All the domestic days in the Delaware creek
And spare
Time
Rolling in the waves, frothing jaws
Now have the empty bottle
I pause, I curse
That some child of me will
Coddle
In the ever-ceaseless body
Full and empty
As the phial, this thing of matter
Sublime in depth
But empty in purpose
Containing all life
But with heartless curses,
Instilled of placidity
But throbbing with surge
Until, it too, the phial will purge
—Had I known its fate of woe
( A monument! And I let it go!)
—I would have weathered the inevitable
( A monument! And I let it go!)
—Then, at least, there’d be something to show
( A monument! And I let it go!)

And where drops the feet, a mild scintillation
Springs in the splash of the puddle here
And there and ‘yond the lawn
Reaching for the vindication
Of gun wrappers, ‘butts, and other
Brazen trash on the damp mulch.
Yet, these rains cry down with passion
Found not but in the ***** of home
—From very far away
—And very much alone
This seed of refuse, fertility yet sown
Sprouts the vine of rebellious fruits
Sneaking serpentine to the edge of the blazing sun
Embracing the split-wood and claiming
The hedge-proper its own.
And though you can’t cry
The world does it for you
Its tears made a forest so much higher
Than I; in meadows pert
You’ll show me a locket
Trodden in dirt, I’ll show you a flower that grew in the hurt
And grows to the top, the burgeon-trees lead
From one, little piece of trash
From one refuse seed.