I should have died a Trojan or a Spartan,
in past times of fear and unknowing,
with goats and games and other Woodsy things.
I should have died
under scrutiny of hills in the hot sun.
I should have died.
Yet here I am in the text of another journey.
I do not say I came home to earth,
for this seductress, this Nature, is a ploy:
I have known water to cry and be afraid when the music was cold.
I want to love what I was not and miraculously depart, resurrecting in flight.
But God's ice is my only road.
And God Himself wets my lips with an old curse.
taken from
"Hearing the Voices"
"The Night Sammy Davis Jr. Couldn't Go On (Las Vegas)"
"Vegas: A Few Scruples"
"Sleeper From Kansas"
"Calendar for Worship"
"And One Other Thing"
"On Hearing the Choirboy Sing"
"Dress Informal"
"III"
"IV"
"Presence"
"Idaho"
"For a Friend"
"Dead Birds"
all poems by A. Wilber Stevens
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