| |
| ONCE on the kind of day called “weather breeder,” | |
| When the heat slowly hazes and the sun | |
| By its own power seems to be undone, | |
| I was half boring through, half climbing through | |
| A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar | 5 |
| And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated, | |
| And sorry I ever left the road I knew, | |
| I paused and rested on a sort of hook | |
| That had me by the coat as good as seated, | |
| And since there was no other way to look, | 10 |
| Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue, | |
| Stood over me a resurrected tree, | |
| A tree that had been down and raised again— | |
| A barkless spectre. He had halted too, | |
| As if for fear of treading upon me. | 15 |
| I saw the strange position of his hands— | |
| Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands | |
| Of wire with something in it from men to men. | |
| “You here?” I said. “Where aren’t you nowadays | |
| And what’s the news you carry—if you know? | 20 |
| And tell me where you’re off for—Montreal? | |
| Me? I’m not off for anywhere at all. | |
| Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways | |
| Half looking for the orchid Calypso.” | |
| |
