Poem For Class

What To Do With Day Old Bread

We climb beyond the blight of swindled play

To watch the racing swallows loop for food 

Above the vole trails snarking in thick mats

Of grasses, what do human children think?

The hill resulted in a view we took:

A fix of Columbine suffused in light 

And lissome green stems gartering my thighs 

I stand, to reach a tallness I’d forgot.

I am a stranger and a placeless being-

From girded blocks of concrete planes, I make

(Its sad) bad bread, although it feeds a few

And now I bring the crumbs out in a pan;

To scatter them about, to feed the birds,

To bolster some real trust and love between  

Me and a tawny wilderness, but these here

Birds don’t even see my open hand-

Or taste the sea salt dust and wheat blown down.

The swallows swing with rapid beats, propelled

On wings, and flay the herds of gnats that fret

In frenzied posses round the rampant stream.