The Hermit At Outermost House

Sky and sea, horizon-hinged

Tablets of blank blue, couldn't,

Clapped shut, flatten this man out.

The great gods, Stone-Head, Claw-Foot

Winded by much rock-bumping

And claw-threat, realized that.

For what, then, had they endured

Dourly the long hots and colds,

Those old despots, if he sat

Laugh-shaken on his doorsill,

Backbone unbendable as

Timbers of his upright hut?

Hard gods were there, nothing else.

Still he thumbed out something else.

Thumbed no stony, horny pot,

But a certain meaning green.

He withstood them, that hermit.

Rock-face, crab-claw verged on green.

Gulls mulled in the greenest light.