"In the old dark the late dark the still deep shadow

    that had travelled silently along itself all night

while the small stars of spring were yet to be seen and the few

    lamps burned by themselves..." – Merwin, "Ancestral Voices"

And the Few Lamps Burned by Themselves

    remember we used to hold the world up by lamps of imagination

another name for fires that rise up from the very touch

    of a hand if it is underneath listening to the flooded trees

rise up as a flame would from uncertain origins seeds

    set a hundred years ago before your own before memories

of such and such before the photographs of ancestors

    were lent to relatives and you held them in your hands

the river trees began to mount their productions and bends

    but today you hold the one that holds the eagle's nest

she had just flown in from over the city over the course

    sounds of metal and sadness to descend on these fierce

sticks plied together over two years so that when you paddle

    directly to its gray base you can only wonder if they feel

the flood and the timber wave by the pulse of the current

    that shriek that strove a moment ago on its arrival

that shriek that came from a time torn by unseen space

    that I could grow to be old and hear again what they did