Surely there is a mine for gold,
And a wood where trees fall like cudgels.
They probe with picks of bone, they haul up burdens in sacks,
They bring fragments of the foregone to light.
Away from human habitation
They sway suspended, hands behind their backs.
The falcon’s eye has seen and passed over.
The rulers of this world have heard rumours.
Death takes things as they come.
They claw the earth in search of crusts,
The earth with fire underneath it
That churns, and churns, and never breaks its bounds.