It's not right, to be treated bad
It's not right, for your love one
To be rude to you
It's not right for someone to accuse you

If you don't like to be treated bad. Don't do it to someone else.

If you never denied you only child
They will still be here
You still be a father
You'll still be happy


Because you denied my pregnancy now the child is gone
The reason your child is dead because I miscarriage someone harm the mother who is carrying your child
No one to blame like your own self

The world to a blind is dark
The pain to a senseless is void
Sound to a deaf is silence
Maybe all we see, hear, feel
is some imagination send to mind
as an electrical pulse on nerves.

Lounging in the dry warmth of the sun,
overcome by the beauty of the green cliffs
rising above the hypnotic blue water. . . .
  
I think of Mann's The Magic Mountain,
obsession with the physical
(not, in this case, disease, of course,
but the sensual):
  
skin glowing in the year-round sun;
ripe fruit
falling into one's hand;
air, rich with the smell of flowers. . . .
  
Wouldn't such pleasure
inevitably dull the mind's keen edge?
  
Wouldn't Eden's ease
subvert all great endeavor?

I left my mittens in the Smokies.
It was that night at Maddron Bald on the ridge
after we'd hiked from Davenport Gap --
12 miles, 4,000 feet.
The girl gave us icicles.
Dazed and breathless, we pitched the tent
and scrambled into our sleeping bags.
  
The morning sun felt good -- Sterling Ridge
on our left, Cosby far below to the right;
Mt. Guyot with its spruces and firs;
lunch at Tri-Corner ****; then down through
the rhododendrons and mud to McGhee Springs.
Raven Fork -- the beech tree, the icy water,
the boulders, the sunlight.
Cabin Flats and Smokemont -- the rain,
the people with pancakes.
  
Campfires, backpacks, flapjacks, barley;
sunshine, lichens, blisters, . . . wood-smoke.

I remember how you used to care for the flowers
and arrange the vegetables at the stand.
How carefully you drove the tractor.
  
I remember you coming out of a cornfield at dawn,
soaked with the dew, laboring under your basket.
  
All the tiny things you looked after --
kittens and toads.
  
And the strange foods you gave us!
  
O Gretchen, wherever you are,
I hope you've found peace.
  
How did you live in that harsh world?
Where did you hide your fragile spirit?
  
O Gretchen, wherever you are,
I hope you've found love.

No garden flowers for me,
no gaudy, painted flowers
(hotel swimming pools beside the ocean).
  
Give me wildflowers --
ironweed and jewelweed,
chicory and Queens-Anne's-lace.