An Explanation of America

From An Explanation of America:
LAIR


Robert Pinsky


Inexhaustible, delicate, as if
Without source or medium, daylight
Undoes the mind; the infinite,


Empty actual is too bright,
Scattering to where the road
Whispers, through a mile of woods …


Later, how quiet the house is:
Dusk-like and refined,
The sweet Phoebe-note


Piercing from the trees;
The calm globe of the morning,
Things to read or to write


Ranged on a table; the brain
A dark, stubborn current that breathes
Blood, a deaf wadding,


The hands feeding it p...