[ilds] The snake has his snowy way...

[James Gifford]

Robert Duncan
-- from /The Years as Catches: First Poems (1939-46)/, 1966


"An Ark for Lawrence Durrell"

If we are to cross the barriers of snow
into the cave-home of our childhood, dark
among darkened lights, telling our beads,
if we are to cross over the roots of sorrow--
let us take with us the fox,
for he is quicker than our sickness;
let us take the cock, for he remembers the day
and leaps for light. And let us take
the white-haired ass who is gentle
and bows his head.

The snake has his own way among us.


(from 1940)