The green woodpecker strikes the hollow tree,
Says "Adam." The plunging frog in pools cries "Man."
And if I fail to note the bluet's gaze,
It
is
amazed. I rush to Thy world, fired by
Thy frenzy, straight as the stone drops to the well.
How beautiful the world
is
for my fall!
Jean Grosjean
(Translated from the French
by
Blanche Adelle Price)
INVENTED A PERSON
Invented a person named I:
Out of use and disuse
And the antique child who watched the new moon in the sky,
And a foot in the antique grave,
Out of faces cast off by mirrors eyeless under light,
Out of love and excuse,
In need, on the screen of a dream:
The target of blow, the chosen of healing and love,
A marvel of fate!
Most trapped, like the wind in a trap
Sweeping forward and out, most curbed like the sea
Storming breakwater walls to the bay, like a bird that must
break for the sky
Through all space winging straight
Longed to be:
Invented a person named I
With a place of its own
A certain thing to be done,
And in fear for that one.
Lenore G. Marshall
