May

There are certain poems I wrote
that never can be set down
Or remembered note by note

For I wrote them in my mind,
before I laid them on paper.
These are the perfect poems of the birds,
Eagle and hawk, the sparrows Philip,
at noon tell of tomorrow.

The perfect poems of war, lad to lad,
That I composed only in my mind,
and never on paper may be had.

[8.17.69]