The Small

The small birds swirl around;

The high cicadas chirr;

A towhee pecks the ground;

I look at the first star:

My heart held to its joy,

This whole September day.

The moon goes to the full;

The moon goes slowly down;

The wood becomes a wall.

Far things draw closer in.

A wind moves through the grass,

Then all is as it was.

What rustles in the fern?

I feel my flesh divide.

Things lost in sleep return

As if out of my side,

On feet that make no sound

Over the sodden ground.

The small shapes drowse: I live

To woo the fearful small;

What moves in grass I love—

The dead will not lie still,

And things throw light on things,

And all the stones have wings.

~Theodore Roethke