Something in Us

                                    Something in us neither knows nor learns

sting of sleet or numbness of the cold

these days as the gentle sun returns.

Rationality too soon discerns

destruction of the body ill and old,

but something in us neither knows nor learns

the crawlers under fiddleheads of ferns

and rotten leaves beneath the dogtooths’ gold

in these gentle days the sun returns.

Churning in the tired bowels spurns

the stiffness our maturing flesh foretold:

something in us neither knows nor learns

the dregs of ice and snow a soft wind burns

as offerings to earth.  Deep roots unfold

gently, these days as the sun returns.

Everywhere unreason overturns

knowledge all must die—the fresh, the bold;

something in us neither knows nor learns

these days as the gentle sun returns.