Lewis Hyde, Poet

Desert

“We have to be in a desert,
for he whom we must love is absent.”
–Simone Weil

Early morning and the mist, saturated with light,
obscures the disappearing powerlines. A damp obscurity
but a desert nonetheless: birds that fly into it
lose their bodies and survive
as the songs of birds, the tallest locust
is nothing but the rustle of its leaves.

Slowly the sun cuts and burns the haze away
to re-embody each in a seedy yellow sleep.

–Lewis Hyde

Lewis Hyde is better known to me as the author of The Gift and Trickster Makes This World. His volume of poetry, This Error is the Sign of Love, was published in 1988.

For more about Hyde’s work and outlook in the realm of the “cultural commons,” see the posting on Slow Painting from Daniel Smith’s article in the New York Times.