Classic Poem

A LEVEL stretch lies on ahead.
Shivering we quit the forest shade
Where puddles stay undried and brown mushrooms are made,
For bushes flowering in hot sun
And the bees working over them.
Goldenrod with sweet-fern grows
Upon the right; the oat fields spread,
And buckwheat. A few apple trees
Stand in grain up to their knees,
Dropping round them gnarly fruits.
Beyond the fields a river flows
Calm amid the mountains' pride.
I might be looking on the right,
But on the left a dirt bank goes
Straight up to blue sky, and I see
Water dripping from the roots
Of shrubs atop it,—such a sight
As if the ground cracked suddenly
By commandment of a jinn
And I saw what the woodchuck sees,
Without the toil of digging in.