Willie Metcalf

    I was Willie Metcalf.
    They used to call me "Doctor Meyers,"
    Because, they said, I looked like him.
    And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire.
    I lived in the livery stable,
    Sleeping on the floor
    Side by side with Roger Baughman's bulldog,
    Or sometimes in a stall.
    I could crawl between the legs of the wildest horses
    Without getting kicked - we knew each other.
    On spring days I tramped through the country
    To get the feeling, which I sometimes lost,
    That I was not a separate thing from the earth.
    I used to lose myself, as if in sleep,
    By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
    Sometimes I talked with animals - even toads and snakes -
    Anything that had an eye to look into.
    Once I saw a stone in the sunshine
    Trying to turn into jelly.
    In April days in this cemetery
    The dead people gathered all about me,
    And grew still, like a congregation in silent prayer.
    I never knew whether I was a part of the earth
    With flowers growing in me, or whether I walked -
    Now I know.