When I saw those thrashers rolling by/ looking more than two lanes wide/ I was feeling like my day had just begun...

A Prayer to Escape from the Marketplace
--James Wright

I renounce the blindness of the magazines
I want to lie down under a tree
This is the only duty that is not death.
This is the everlasting happiness
Of small winds.
Suddenly,
A pheasant flutters, and I turn
Only to see him vanishing at the damp edge
Of the road.

Having Lost My Sons, I Confront The Wreckage Of The Moon: Christmas, 1960
-- by James Wright

After dark
Near the South Dakota border,
The moon is out hunting, everywhere,
Delivering fire,
And walking down hallways
Of a diamond.

Behind a tree,
It lights on the ruins
Of a white city
Frost, frost.

Where are they gone
Who lived there?

Bundled away under wings
And dark faces.

I am sick
Of it, and I go on
Living, alone, alone,
Past the charred silos, past the hidden graves
Of Chippewas and Norwegians.

This cold winter
Moon spills the inhuman fire
Of jewels
Into my hands.

Dead riches, dead hands, the moon
Darkens,
And I am lost in the beautiful white ruins
Of America.

Words
--by franz wright

I don't know where they come from.
I can summon them
(sometimes I can)
into my mind,
into my fingers,
I don't know why: or I'll suddenly hear them
walking, sometimes
waking--
they don't often come when I need them
when I need them most terribly,
never

Year One
--by Franz Wright

I was still standing
on a northern corner

Moonlit winter clouds the color of the desperation of wolves.

Proof
of Your existence? There is nothing
but.