THE GUESS
WE buried them beneath the deep green hill— A little Ark full, women, men and cattle, Children and household pets, engrossed by war. And then one morning they were back again, And held as once before their little reign. All joys and sorrows but the last were there ; That day erased ; no pit or mound of battle. They lay as by some happy chance reborn An hour or two before the birth of ill, And ere ill came they'd be away again. Quick leave and brief reward, so lightly worn.
I watched them move between sleep and awake.
It was a dream and could not be fulfilled, For all these ghosts were blessed. Yet there seemed
Nothing more natural than blessedness,
Nor any life as true as this I dreamed,
So that I did not feel that I had willed These forms, but that a long forgotten guess Had shown, past chaos, the natural shape we take.
EDWIN MUHL
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