And still from that same time, a poem called "The Chaff."
These are mostly rural poems.
And I'm going to have to correct that at some point,
because there are cities, after all.
"The Chaff."
And do you remember the--
my father was a Presbyterian minister.
And I was early struck by that image,
"The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff
which the wind driveth away."
You remember that?
I was really taken by that as a very small child.
And I, of course, had to know what the chaff was,
and I'd never seen it.
But that's one of the examples of the sound of language
seizing you before you can know what it's about.
There's something so powerful in that version of the Bible
that, you can correct it all you like later,
but if you've lost that quality, you haven't gained anything.
"The Chaff."
"Those who cannot love the heavens or the Earth,
beaten from the heavens and the Earth, eat each other.
Those who cannot love each other, beaten from each other,
eat themselves.
Those who cannot love themselves,
beaten from themselves, eat a terrible bread.
Kneaded in the morning, shrouded all day,
baked in the dark, whose sweet smell brings the chaff flying
like empty hands through the turning sky, night after night,
calling with voices of young birds to his wheat."