DEATH

What effort!
What effort the horse makes
To be a dog!
What effort the dog to become a swallow!
What effort the swallow to be a bee!
What effort the bee to become a horse!
And the horse,
what a sharp shaft it steals from the rose!
what grey rosiness lifts from its lips!
And the rose,
what a flock of lights and cries
caught in the living sap of its stem!
And the sap,
what thorns it dreams in its vigil!
And the tiny daggers
what moon, and no stable, what nakedness,
skin eternal and reddened, they go seeking!
And I, in the eaves,
what a burning seraph I seek and am!
But the arch of plaster,
how vast, invisible, how minute,
without effort!