"Neil" - Henri Cole

My mother never forgave my father for sleeping
with Neil. You don’t need a wife, she screamed;
You already have one. She sounded like a whipping woman
but she was wounded. For years, she shut herself
in their bedroom and slept. Once, her baking was so fine
that the silverfish in our house were morbidly obese.
To think of my parents now costs me such an effort. 
My heart thumps as if I might faint or die. 
I hope they are resting. They were not so strong,
pulling on each other’s hair when the devil seized them—
Mother, barefoot in her nightgown, and Father, in his
leather slippers and black-watch robe—
like erect white stems blurred silvery gray by pollen.
I feel so much admiration for them. 

- Henri Cole

Robinson Jeffers - "People and a Heron"

People and a Heron
by Robinson Jeffers

A desert of weed and water-darkened stone under my western
            windows
The ebb lasted all afternoon,
And many pieces of humanity, men, women, and children,
            gathering shellfish,
Swarmed with voices of gulls the sea-breach.
At twilight they went off together, the verge was left vacant,
            an evening heron
Bent broad wings over the black ebb,
And left me wondering why a lone bird was dearer to me than
            many people.
Well: rare is dear: but also I suppose
Well reconciled with the world but not with our own natures
            we grudge to see them
Reflected on the world for a mirror.