Classic Poem

And when I speak to you of common things
You receive them for a moment
With candor and with level eyes,
Acknowledging their right to be. . . .

And then always you dismiss them,
Replacing them with the long, true splendors
Of a steely fish cutting through rings of steel,
And you run your fingers across a mountain-side
Strung like a lyre with thin waters,
And you sheath the blade of your body
In a scabbard of sea.

And the rock,
On which my hand is,
Becomes a firmament
And my head the moon
And my feet
The people of the earth
Who speak to us of common things.