The Hoosier Poems
Deft limbs move young up corridors
of wind and mellowed hills, and laughter
chases echoes off the heights.
Pursuits of leaves and children dance
as partners in wind and music. Young feet,
shoe-less, climb a stair-cased stream
canopied by arches of trees:
in the clay, cuneiforms of prints
of deer are read by young eyes as a call
to hunt. From once blades of summer rise
the panting wings of pheasants breaking
the mural of sky and clouds to fly
across the crest of womanly turns
of earth; young eyes soar with the wings
over green-less bushes -- to land
on the stag tawny in its autumn world,
black eyes, black nose intense upon
its world, still-carved for children's sighs
but to steal with the noise of woods and bush,
outdistancing the children's feet
although young minds pursue for years.