Classic Poem

PEACE / this ancient culture

IV

this ancient culture
in which women walk
as if measure were all,
and children could charm
a lizard out of a tree,
these gentle, patient men

Peace,
I dare not call you shepherd;
mother
more complex than atomic science,
are you not native to our cities?
to our fears and angers?
Must you be brief? conditional?

So sweet,
yet so uncertain!English