Debate: Question, Quary, Dream

Lyrics

Asking what, asking what?—all a boy's afternoon Squatting in the canebrake where the muskrat will come Muskrat, muskrat, please now, please, come soon He comes, stares, goes, lets the question resume He has taken whatever answer may be down to his mud-burrow gloom Seeking what, seeking what?—foot soft in cedar-shade Was that a deer-flag white past windfall and fern? No, but by bluffside lurk powers and in the fern-glade Tall presences, standing all night, like white fox-firе burn The small fox lays his head in your hand now and weeps that you go, not to return Drеaming what, dreaming what?—lying on the hill at twilight Still air stirred only by moth wing, and last stain of sun Fading to moth-sky, blood-red to moth-white and starlight And Time leans down to kiss the heart's ambition While far away, before moonrise, come the town lights, one by one Long since that time I have walked night street, heel-iron Clicking the stone, and in dark in windows have stared Question, quarry, dream—I have vented my ire on My own heart that, ignorant and untoward Yearns for an absolute that Time would, I thought, have prepared But has not yet. Well, let us debate The issue. But under a tight roof, clutching a toy My son now sleeps, and when the hour grows late I shall go forth where the cold constellations deploy And lift up my eyes to consider more strictly the appalling logic of joy