A Spring Message from Nathaniel Tarn

::

the great birds of the sea
do not to the great ocean down
& dive he would say
mostly for food
but for eye's joy
hermit's happiness
on this lone shore
saint to be himself alone--
but, inasmuch as
they fly in company of kin
& never solitary
so that their time is a history
(as we understand it
thus, it is for the hungry in ourselves,
the humanity which is our nature,
that, like us, toiling,
they down to smelt & worm,
their lovely passage a banality
to fill the belly
they and we must march on
if we are to grow
legs, wings of willing