Carol on Corfu
I, per se I, I sing on.
Let flesh falter, or let bone break
Break, yet the salt of a poem holds on,
Even in empty weather
When beak and feather have done.

I am such fiddle-glib strokes,
As play on the nerves, glance the bare bone
With the madman's verve I quicken,
Leaven and liven body's prime carbon,
I, per se I, alone.

This is my medicine: trees speak and doves
Talk, woods walk: in the pith of the planet
Is undertone, overtone, status of music: God
Opens each fent, scent, memory, aftermath
In the sky and the sod.

O per se O, I sing on.
Never tongue falters or love lessens,
Lessens. The salt of the poem lives on
Like this carol of empty weather
Now feather and beak have gone.